NEW YORK, NY / ACCESS Newswire / December 3, 2025 / The Western world keeps talking about mineral independence, but most of that ambition collapses the moment the materials hit a refinery. The truth is simple. The West is not losing the critical minerals race because it produces less. It is losing because it verifies less. Gold, rare earths, copper, nickel, cobalt, and strategic alloys move through global pipelines that forget where they came from the moment they change form. The weakest link is not geology. It is identity.
SMX (NASDAQ:SMX) stepped straight into this blind spot with a technology that gives minerals what they have always lacked. They get a molecular-level identity at the source. And that identity survives smelting, blending, recasting, melting, alloying, and recycling. That shift is not cosmetic. It changes the balance of power inside the most strategically important markets on earth.
Critical minerals supply chains have outgrown the paper systems designed decades ago. A shipment of rare earth concentrate might pass through five jurisdictions before processing. Gold might be recast three times before landing in a vault. Copper concentrate can be blended and reblended until the paperwork no longer resembles the material. Regulators want proof of origin and purity. Buyers want certainty. Investors want to avoid hidden risk. No one can deliver any of it when the supply chain has no memory.
SMX rebuilt the system so the memory lives inside the material itself. Molecular markers attach verification at extraction or early processing. A digital identity follows the mineral through every transformation. Refiners no longer lose traceability when ore is smelted. Manufacturers do not lose certainty when rare earths get converted into magnets or alloys. Gold no longer becomes anonymous once it is recast. Verification stops being a stack of certificates and becomes a built-in attribute that moves with the metal.
That is how the West regains leverage without trying to replicate state-controlled refining ecosystems.
Gold and Rare Earths Prove How Fast the System Can Shift
The most immediate impact of SMX’s approach is unfolding in precious metals and rare earths, the sectors where verification failures carry the highest economic and geopolitical cost.
Gold is the clearest example. The market treats gold as absolute certainty, yet it remains one of the easiest materials to counterfeit or mislabel. SMX’s work with Goldstrom and trueGold shows how quickly that weakness disappears once the metal carries an identity that survives every melt and recast. When gold can prove its origin and purity at any stage, trading hubs like the DMCC gain a level of transparency that transforms the entire ecosystem. Verified gold commands premium pricing and moves through borders faster because regulators trust the material, not the paperwork.
Rare earths reveal the same story at an industrial scale. These materials feed defense systems, motors, batteries, sensors, and aerospace technologies. They are processed through complex loops where purity and composition are essential. SMX’s collaboration with advanced groups like CARTIF demonstrated that rare earths can retain molecular-level identity throughout high-heat, high-pressure manufacturing environments. That gives Western manufacturers the ability to validate inputs independently of foreign processing centers, something the West has never truly possessed.
This is how verification becomes a strategic asset instead of an administrative burden.
Why SMX’s $111.5 Million Equity Purchase Deal Is a Turning Point
The West cannot afford slow adoption. It needs a verification architecture that can scale at industrial speed. SMX now has exactly that. Its $111.5 million equity purchase agreement gives it the financial engine to roll out identity systems across gold, rare earths, and high-value minerals with global reach. This agreement transforms SMX from a breakthrough technology company into a backbone supplier for the next decade of minerals policy.
Western industries do not just need more production. They need verifiable production, supply chains they can defend, inputs they can trust, and compliance they can prove. SMX now has the capital runway to deliver that at scale.
The New Divide Is Already Forming
As verification becomes standard, the market will split. On one side will be metals and minerals with embedded proof. On the other will be materials that still depend on legacy documentation. The verified category will command premiums, faster processing, and lower regulatory friction. The unverified category will trade at a discount and carry higher risk.
Critical mineral independence will not be won by owning every mine. It will be won by knowing exactly what enters the system, no matter where it originates. That is the advantage the West has been missing.
SMX did not just build a technology platform. It built the West’s new rulebook for the minerals economy. The companies that adopt it will set the terms. The ones that don’t will keep playing by someone else’s.
About SMX
As global businesses face new and complex challenges relating to carbon neutrality and meeting new governmental and regional regulations and standards, SMX is able to offer players along the value chain access to its marking, tracking, measuring and digital platform technology to transition more successfully to a low-carbon economy.
Forward-Looking Statements
The information in this press release includes “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding expectations, hopes, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding the future. In addition, any statements that refer to projections, forecasts or other characterizations of future events or circumstances, including any underlying assumptions, are forward-looking statements. The words “anticipate,” “believe,” “contemplate,” “continue,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intends,” “may,” “will,” “might,” “plan,” “possible,” “potential,” “predict,” “project,” “should,” “would” and similar expressions may identify forward-looking statements, but the absence of these words does not mean that a statement is not forward-looking. Forward-looking statements in this press release may include, for example: matters relating to the Company’s fight against abusive and possibly illegal trading tactics against the Company’s stock; successful launch and implementation of SMX’s joint projects with manufacturers and other supply chain participants of steel, rubber and other materials; changes in SMX’s strategy, future operations, financial position, estimated revenues and losses, projected costs, prospects and plans; SMX’s ability to develop and launch new products and services, including its planned Plastic Cycle Token; SMX’s ability to successfully and efficiently integrate future expansion plans and opportunities; SMX’s ability to grow its business in a cost-effective manner; SMX’s product development timeline and estimated research and development costs; the implementation, market acceptance and success of SMX’s business model; developments and projections relating to SMX’s competitors and industry; and SMX’s approach and goals with respect to technology. These forward-looking statements are based on information available as of the date of this press release, and current expectations, forecasts and assumptions, and involve a number of judgments, risks and uncertainties. Accordingly, forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing views as of any subsequent date, and no obligation is undertaken to update forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date they were made, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required under applicable securities laws. As a result of a number of known and unknown risks and uncertainties, actual results or performance may be materially different from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Some factors that could cause actual results to differ include: the ability to maintain the listing of the Company’s shares on Nasdaq; changes in applicable laws or regulations; any lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on SMX’s business; the ability to implement business plans, forecasts, and other expectations, and identify and realize additional opportunities; the risk of downturns and the possibility of rapid change in the highly competitive industry in which SMX operates; the risk that SMX and its current and future collaborators are unable to successfully develop and commercialize SMX’s products or services, or experience significant delays in doing so; the risk that the Company may never achieve or sustain profitability; the risk that the Company will need to raise additional capital to execute its business plan, which may not be available on acceptable terms or at all; the risk that the Company experiences difficulties in managing its growth and expanding operations; the risk that third-party suppliers and manufacturers are not able to fully and timely meet their obligations; the risk that SMX is unable to secure or protect its intellectual property; the possibility that SMX may be adversely affected by other economic, business, and/or competitive factors; and other risks and uncertainties described in SMX’s filings from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Contact: info@securitymattersltd.com
SOURCE: SMX (Security Matters) Public Limited
View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire
