Marathon Fusion claims breakthrough in producing gold from mercury

San Francisco based startup Marathon Fusion has claimed to produce stable gold from mercury through nuclear transmutation. The company reported using high-energy neutrons from a deuterium-tritium fusion reaction to irradiate mercury-198, creating a radioactive isotope that decays into stable gold-197. Marathon Fusion stated this process achieved a rate ten times higher than the record held by CERN.

The claim has sparked discussions regarding the potential impact on gold scarcity and its comparison to the lab-grown diamond industry. While Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong suggested the development could favor Bitcoin due to its hard-capped supply, experts note significant hurdles to mass production. Nikos Kavalis of Metals Focus stated that the technology is nowhere near a stage of production significance.

Analysts suggest that unlike lab-grown diamonds, which saw wholesale prices drop by 90% to 95% over the last decade, lab-grown gold cannot currently be mass-produced cheaply. The fusion process produces only tiny amounts at a high cost, meaning the existing global gold stockpile remains largely unaffected by the current technological milestone.