The silver ore was ground up, refined with mercury and then shipped to Europe as bars and coins.
Empire, it seemed, had made the Spanish Crown rich beyond the dreams of avarice.
And yet, all the silver in the mines of Potosi couldn't halt the inexorable economic and political decline of Spain's Empire.
Why was that, when Pizarro seemed to have struck it so incredibly rich?
The answer is that the Spaniards had dug up so much silver to finance their wars of conquest
that the metal itself suffered an extraordinary decline in value.
More silver coins didn't make Spain richer,
they simply made prices higher as an increased quantity of money chased the same amount of goods.
What the Spaniards didn't get was that money is only worth what other people will give in exchange for it.