SMX Gives Strategic Rare Earth Minerals an Immutable Identity

NEW YORK, NY / ACCESS Newswire / November 28, 2025 / The rare earth industry has spent years circling the same problem. Minerals move through too many borders, too many processors, and too many chemical transformations to maintain a trustworthy origin story. By the time a rare earth oxide becomes a magnet or an alloy, the truth behind it has been diluted by paperwork, assumptions, and gaps no one can independently verify. SMX (NASDAQ:SMX) introduced a different path. It placed identity inside the material itself, embedding a molecular signature that survives every physical and chemical stage from mined ore to final component.

That capability is arriving at a time when global supply chains can no longer rely on declarations, affidavits or third-party attestations. China still dominates the refining stages that turn ores into usable elements, creating a bottleneck where visibility breaks down, and provenance gets blurred. SMX cuts straight through that blind spot. It gives rare earths a memory, a way to carry their origin through crushing, separation, calcination, and purification without losing the truth in the transition.

The shift is bigger than science. It is an architectural change to how strategic materials are validated. For decades, rare earths have been essential to modern industry, yet the world has never had a verification system that followed the material itself. Everyone relied on forms, not facts. SMX rewrote that relationship by creating a signal that cannot be washed away or substituted. It gives manufacturers and governments what they have never had before, a permanent method to confirm authenticity without depending on unverifiable claims.

The Global Scramble for Traceable Critical Minerals

Nations are now racing to secure critical minerals for electric vehicles, renewable energy, defense systems, and semiconductor production. Those plans fall apart if the inputs cannot prove their identity. The old model of tracing rare earths through customs documents and shipping logs collapses as soon as concentrates cross borders or enter a processing facility. Chemical profiles lose meaning once material goes through separation. Digital tracking breaks when elements dissolve. Supply chains built for the 1980s cannot support the industrial needs of the 2030s.

This is why the United States and Europe are rewriting their sourcing frameworks. They are discovering that strategic control means nothing without verification. A country can open new mines and invest in new refineries, but unless the incoming feedstock can defend its own truth, the system remains vulnerable. SMX closes that vulnerability. Its embedded markers survive extraction, refining, alloying, and end-use manufacturing, creating a continuous chain of identity that does not fade.

The market is beginning to treat this as a requirement rather than a competitive advantage. Auto manufacturers want magnets that come with an irrefutable origin. Defense contractors cannot risk materials without independent proof. Government-backed facilities will not process unverifiable feedstock. Investors are already pricing in the penalties for supply chain opacity. A new global standard is forming around material-level verification, and SMX is one of the few technologies capable of delivering it.

A New Power Structure in Critical Materials

Rare earth influence is shifting away from countries that merely extract or refine and toward those that can verify. Authenticity is becoming the new currency of strategic materials. SMX's molecular identity system is accelerating that shift. It transforms authenticity from a claim printed on a certificate into a characteristic embedded in the material itself. Supply chains must now reorganize around the truth that does not depend on trust.

The next decade of technological advancement hinges on this change. Electric vehicle motors only perform as reliably as the magnets inside them. Defense systems are only as secure as the alloys that support their architecture. Semiconductor technologies are only as resilient as the elements that form their substrates. When rare earths can authenticate themselves, every downstream technology becomes more stable, predictable and secure.

A new hierarchy is starting to form. Suppliers who deliver minerals with intrinsic, permanent identity will become preferred partners in high-value industries. Those who cannot verify their feedstock will fall to commodity status or be excluded from sensitive applications entirely. SMX is hastening that transformation by giving the world a way to distinguish truth from assumption. Companies that adopt this capability will define the future of the critical mineral economy. Those who resist will find themselves outpaced by a system that no longer accepts unproven materials.

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: [email protected]

SOURCE: SMX (Security Matters) Public Limited