NEW YORK, NY / ACCESS Newswire / November 28, 2025 / The rare earth sector has spent years trying to solve a problem that has grown more complicated as the supply chain expanded. Ores are mined in one region, processed in another, separated in a third, and upgraded again before reaching a magnet plant. By the time a finished component comes to market, the material's origin story is usually reduced to paperwork and assumptions. SMX (NASDAQ: SMX) introduced a breakthrough that rewrites that reality. Its molecular-level verification system gives rare earth elements a permanent identity that carries through every transformation. Once a marker is embedded, it survives crushing, leaching, roasting, purification, and final manufacturing.

This capability is arriving at a moment when governments and industries cannot rely on declarations alone. The world is entering an era where critical minerals determine energy security, defense capacity, and industrial competitiveness. Yet the systems built to track rare earths were never designed for the complexity of today's supply chains. Countries that extract minerals often do not refine them. Countries that refine them often do not manufacture the final products. SMX created a way to tie all of those stages together through a material-based identity that does not break when the paperwork does.

That difference makes rare earths credible in a way they have never been before. Manufacturers can confirm the authenticity of materials as they move through the supply chain. Regulators can validate compliance with new sourcing laws. Investors can assess the integrity of a supply chain without relying on unverifiable claims. SMX is giving the industry something it has never had. A way for the material itself to tell the truth.

The New Standard for Strategic Minerals

Critical mineral policy is no longer theoretical. The United States, Europe, and other regions are enforcing strict requirements around verification, ethical sourcing, and traceability that reach all the way back to the mine site. These rules are reshaping how rare earth supply chains operate because they expose a long-standing weakness. Documentation can be forged, lost or misaligned. Chemical fingerprints disappear once a mineral enters a refining bath. Digital tracking systems fall apart when materials dissolve, change form or pass through facilities outside the regulatory perimeter. SMX offers a different model that withstands all of those vulnerabilities.

The company's molecular markers stay with the material regardless of the number of refiners, processors or borders it crosses. A rare earth concentrate marked at the mine can still retain its identity after it is separated into an oxide. That oxide retains its identity when it becomes a metal. The metal carries it when it becomes an alloy. Even the magnets that power an electric vehicle can trace their identity back to the earliest stages of extraction. That continuity gives governments and manufacturers something they have never possessed. A way to verify source, purity, and ethical movement without relying on trust.

This level of verification is becoming essential because applications that use rare earths are too critical to tolerate uncertainty. Electric vehicles depend on neodymium and dysprosium magnets for efficiency. Wind turbines rely on rare earth metals for stability and performance. Advanced semiconductors need highly controlled materials for precision manufacturing. Defense systems require absolute confidence in the alloys embedded in their architecture. SMX's markers deliver that confidence because they follow the mineral, not the story attached to it.

A Realignment Driven by Proof, Not Production

The global rare earth market is shifting toward a new form of influence. Countries and companies with verification capacity will carry more strategic weight than those with extraction volume alone. SMX is driving that realignment. It gives producers a way to defend the integrity of their output. It gives refiners a way to demonstrate transparency. It provides manufacturers with a defensible chain of custody, strengthening their access to regulated markets. This changes how value is assigned within the industry, as authenticity becomes a defining feature of the supply chain rather than an afterthought.

This transformation is already visible in how companies position themselves for future contracts. Major manufacturers are requesting rare earth materials that come with an intrinsic identity rather than claims that need to be validated after the fact. Governments are aligning subsidies and incentives around supply chains that can prove each stage of production. Investors are beginning to prioritize companies that can deliver verified feedstock because unverified materials invite regulatory risk. The momentum is moving toward verification as a competitive advantage rather than a compliance burden.

The broader implication is that SMX is introducing a structural reset to the rare earth economy. The industry can no longer depend on fragmented documentation or unverifiable origin stories. It now has access to a technology that embeds authenticity into the material itself. The companies that adopt this standard will move ahead of the market because they can satisfy regulatory pressure, meet manufacturer requirements and assure investors they control their supply chain. Those who resist will struggle in a world that no longer accepts uncertainty in the materials that power modern technology.

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