NEW YORK, NY, NY / ACCESS Newswire / October 21, 2025 / At Utah's White Mesa Mill, the air hums with acid and ambition. Massive sacks of monazite ore-each heavier than a car-sit in tight formation like munitions for an unseen war. Inside lies the lifeblood of modern civilization: rare-earth elements that power fighter jets, smartphones, wind turbines, and EVs alike.

This is no ordinary mine scene. It's the front line of a conflict where proof, not politics, defines control. And quietly in the background, SMX (NASDAQ: SMX) may hold the key. Its molecular-marking technology could become the long-missing infrastructure for a supply chain that has forgotten how to verify its own story.

Because here's the uncomfortable truth: those raw materials may be strategic, but their origins remain opaque. Every ton refined could be clean-or compromised. No one can say for sure, because trust still moves faster than evidence.

A Paper Trail Built on Faith

For decades, trade has relied on signatures, stamps, and assumptions. Shipments crossed oceans on the strength of paperwork alone. Governments, corporations, and lenders alike accepted it as gospel, even when no one could confirm what was actually inside. The global supply chain evolved into a storytelling exercise rather than a system of record.

That fiction had consequences. The United States once dominated rare-earth production but ceded its lead through deregulation and complacency. According to CSIS.org, China now mines roughly 70% of global rare earths and controls about 90% of the refining capacity. While Beijing built foundries and chemical plants, much of the West built spreadsheets. Margins trumped sovereignty, and transparency was traded for throughput.

The result? Materials that can be relabeled, blended, or laundered across continents with near-zero accountability. When trade tensions finally exposed those cracks, the illusion of verified supply collapsed.

Finance Finally Follows the Proof

Even Wall Street sees it coming. JPMorgan Chase has pledged up to $10 billion to strengthen industries tied to U.S. national security-from defense to critical minerals. CEO Jamie Dimon framed it as patriotic duty, but make no mistake, it's a response to risk.

When the world's biggest bank begins funding supply-chain resilience, it signals a deeper problem: the old math no longer works. Dimon's message was clear-the United States depends too heavily on unreliable foreign inputs. Translation, the trust premium has expired. Proof now determines creditworthiness.

That's where SMX steps in. The company's molecular-marker technology embeds unique chemical signatures directly into materials-rubber, gold, timber, plastics, even rare earths. Each tag functions as a digital passport, tracking origin, movement, and transformation in real time.

If the monazite feedstock at White Mesa carried SMX's invisible ID, every batch could be traced from mine to magnet. Counterfeiting would collapse, substitution would fail, and smuggling would meet chemistry instead of customs.

This isn't block-chain hype or software gloss. It's physical verification at the atomic level-chemistry turned into compliance.

And unlike geopolitical alliances, it doesn't choose sides. Proof isn't partisan; it's structural. It converts belief into measurable truth.

Closing the World's Costliest Blind Spot

Governments are pouring billions into mining, refining, and recycling rare earths, yet the same flaw persists: an unverified supply chain. That's the blind spot SMX was designed to close.

By linking the physical world to an immutable digital record, SMX gives every nation, company, and consumer a shared standard of authenticity. Its system already operates commercially across metals, minerals, textiles, and luxury goods-and is now scaling toward the critical-materials sector that underpins clean energy and defense manufacturing.

The payoff is enormous: trade based on verified origin rather than ideology. That neutrality makes SMX's technology as diplomatic as it is industrial.

Proof Isn't Optional Anymore

At Energy Fuels' White Mesa Mill, optimism is high. New refineries, new magnet plants, and new rhetoric about resource independence keep the headlines busy. But without verification, it's optimism on paper. The same paperwork that broke the system can't rebuild it.

JPMorgan's $10 billion isn't celebration money-it's an early-warning system. Because the next crisis may not start with bombs or markets, but with misinformation about the materials that keep them running.

SMX's solution is already here: a molecular truth layer for a post-trust world. It doesn't just store data-it embeds honesty into matter itself. Proof isn't patriotic. Proof is survival. And the time to build that firewall is now.

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 gold, 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.

EMAIL: info@securitymattersltd.com

SOURCE: SMX (Security Matters) Public Limited