NEW YORK, NY / ACCESS Newswire / December 16, 2025 / For years, even decades, analysts kept waiting for gold to reclaim its role as the foundation of global money. They predicted a return to a monetary gold standard, a moment when central banks would peg currencies to bullion again. But while the world argued about economic theory, the real revolution arrived from an unexpected direction. The next global gold standard will not be financial. It will be forensic.

Gold is entering an era where value is determined not by macroeconomics, but by molecular identity. The question will no longer be how much gold you hold. It will be how much of that gold can prove its truth.

Behind the scenes, global gold markets are fraying. Bars that cannot be confirmed. Supplies with uncertain origin. Vaults that inherited bullion through decades of undocumented transfers. Documentation systems built for a slower world. In the age of sanctions, supply chain crackdowns, and geopolitics, trust is no longer enough. The market needs a gold standard rooted in verification, not nostalgia. This is the quiet crisis gold has been hiding. Its greatest strength has always been certainty, yet its greatest weakness has always been unverifiability.

SMX (NASDAQ:SMX) has drafted the architecture for this new standard. Its molecular identity technology embeds a permanent fingerprint directly into the metal itself. Melt it, recast it, split it, refine it, transport it - the identity stays. That turns gold from a metal that relies on trust into a metal that declares its own truth.

SMX Raises the Gold Standard with a Single Thing: PROOF

The old gold standard functioned on one assumption: that gold held by banks was exactly what banks said it was. For more than a century, institutions moved bullion based on paperwork, serial numbers, and refinery markings. These tools worked when supply chains were simple and geopolitical tensions were low. They do not work now. Today, gold moves through dozens of hands. It is melted, reshaped, alloyed, and transported across borders with inconsistent oversight. Every transformation breaks the chain of identity that the monetary system once trusted blindly.

That is why modern markets no longer fear gold shortages. They fear gold doubt. All it takes is one vault discovering compromised bars for the system to question the authenticity of everything surrounding it. Monetary theory cannot solve that. Certificates cannot solve that. Even the best auditors cannot solve that. You cannot anchor a global currency system to a material that can erase its own past with a blast furnace.

A molecular gold standard solves the flaw entirely. Gold becomes self-authenticating. It carries its own history. It cannot lose its identity. That is the world SMX is building, and it is the world the monetary gold standard needed but never had.

Price-verified Gold at a Premium, Discount Everything Else

Once identity becomes infrastructure, gold splits into two categories. Verified bullion with molecular proof becomes the premium asset. Unverified bullion becomes the risky asset. Investors will gravitate to the tier with certainty. Banks will demand the tier with traceability. Exchanges will list the tier with compliance clarity. And regulators will enforce the tier with forensic-grade evidence. The market will not debate which one deserves a higher price. It will demonstrate it through liquidity, premiums, and global acceptance.

At this point, gold becomes more than a store of value. It becomes a store of truth. That truth has pricing power. Verified gold will command premiums because it eliminates the risk that regulators seize it, vaults reject it, or investors discount it. Unverified gold will drift into a second-class category because no one can guarantee its legality, purity, or origin at scale. The new gold standard is not theoretical. It is operational.

SMX is the company enabling that shift and driving this change. Its technology gives gold a memory, a history, and an identity the market cannot forge or lose. With that, the next era of gold will not be about weight. It will be about proof. And the gold that carries it will likely become the world's most important asset class.

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