Author: SMX (Security Matters) Public Limited

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK / ACCESS Newswire / January 8, 2026 / For companies operating at the intersection of sustainability and supply-chain technology, financial structure is increasingly part of the story.

SMX (NASDAQ:SMX; SMXWW), a firm focused on material traceability, recently cleared a notable hurdle by converting more than $20 million in outstanding convertible notes into equity. The move removes a class of debt that can weigh on smaller public companies, particularly those working in capital-intensive or regulation-driven sectors.

Convertible debt often serves as a bridge for early-stage or growth-phase firms, but it can also complicate future fundraising and create uncertainty around dilution. By eliminating that layer, SMX joins a growing number of technology companies attempting to streamline their balance sheets as they move from development into broader commercialization.

The timing reflects larger pressures shaping the materials and sustainability space.

Across plastics, industrial materials, and packaging, regulators are tightening requirements around traceability, recycled content, and lifecycle accountability. At the same time, companies face increased scrutiny over environmental claims that once relied on estimates or self-reported data.

That regulatory shift is fueling interest in technologies that can verify materials at a granular level rather than relying on labels, documentation, or third-party attestations. SMX’s approach centers on embedding molecular-level markers directly into materials during manufacturing, allowing those materials to be identified and tracked throughout their lifecycle.

The concept is designed to solve a persistent problem in recycling and circular-economy systems: once materials are processed or mixed, traditional tracking methods often break down. Embedded identifiers, by contrast, remain with the material itself, enabling verification even after multiple stages of use or recovery.

This type of infrastructure is increasingly viewed as foundational rather than optional. Governments are moving toward enforcement models that require proof of compliance, and brands face reputational and legal risk if sustainability claims cannot be substantiated.

Against that backdrop, companies building traceability platforms face a dual challenge: scaling technically while maintaining financial flexibility. Simplifying capital structures has become part of that equation, particularly for firms navigating long development cycles and evolving regulatory frameworks.

The market opportunity is significant. Analysts estimate that systems supporting traceability, compliance, and circular materials span tens of billions of dollars globally, driven by environmental mandates and supply-chain reform.

Still, adoption remains uneven, and success depends on integration across manufacturers, recyclers, and regulators-an inherently complex task.

By clearing its convertible debt, SMX reduces one layer of financial uncertainty as it works to expand its footprint in that landscape. Whether that positioning translates into widespread adoption will depend less on balance-sheet mechanics than on how quickly regulation and industry align around verifiable, material-level data as a new standard.

In the meantime, the move highlights a broader trend: in sustainability technology, credibility is measured not only by innovation, but by financial structure capable of supporting long-term execution.

Contact:

Jeremy Murphy/ jeremymurphy@me.com

SOURCE: SMX (Security Matters) Public Limited

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK / ACCESS Newswire / January 8, 2026 / Once upon a time, gold and silver lived mysterious lives. They were mined somewhere far away, melted down, traded hands in hushed rooms, stashed in vaults, worn on fingers, and occasionally lost in the couch cushions of history. Where did they come from? Who owned them before you? Were they responsibly sourced-or did they take a shady detour through a few international borders?

For centuries, no one really knew. Precious metals were glamorous… and incredibly forgetful.

Enter SMX (NASDAQ:SMX; SMXWW).

SMX is best known for its work tracking plastics and materials across global supply chains, but the same technology that can follow a piece of packaging from factory floor to recycling bin could just as easily keep tabs on gold, silver, and other valuable metals-without changing how they look, feel, or sparkle.

In other words: your gold bar could come with a verified backstory. And it wouldn’t even need a passport.

SMX uses molecular marking and digital tracking technology to embed invisible identifiers directly into materials. These markers are microscopic, durable, and designed to survive real-world conditions-heat, pressure, transport, manufacturing, and time. Think of it less like a sticker and more like DNA for stuff.

Applied to precious metals, that means gold could be tagged at the source-at the mine itself-and then tracked as it’s refined, traded, stored, sold, and reused. Every step of its journey could be logged on a secure digital platform, creating a verifiable chain of custody that follows the metal wherever it goes.

Why does this matter to regular people who are not hoarding bullion in Swiss vaults?

For starters: trust.

Today, consumers are increasingly concerned about where products come from and what impact they have. “Ethically sourced” gold sounds great on a website, but proving it is another story. With SMX-style tracking, a jeweler could show that a ring’s gold didn’t come from conflict zones, illegal mining operations, or environmentally destructive practices. The metal’s history wouldn’t be marketing-it would be data.

Then there’s fraud. Counterfeit gold bars and silver coins are very real things. If you’ve ever seen a YouTube video of someone drilling into a “solid gold” bar only to find something… less solid inside, you know the anxiety is justified. Molecular tracking adds an extra layer of authentication, making it much harder for fake metals to pass as the real thing.

There’s also the investment angle. As precious metals increasingly move into tokenized markets and digital trading platforms, verified provenance becomes critical. A digitally tracked gold asset isn’t just shiny-it’s validated. That matters to institutional investors, regulators, and anyone who prefers their wealth storage drama-free.

And finally, there’s sustainability. Metals are endlessly recyclable, but once they lose their identity, it’s hard to measure impact. Tracking allows companies and governments to understand how much gold or silver is being reused, where losses occur, and how circular the system actually is-not just how circular it claims to be.

So no, your necklace won’t start texting you. Your silverware won’t snitch on you to the IRS. But with SMX-style technology, precious metals could quietly become some of the most transparent materials on Earth.

Gold has always been valuable. Now it might finally be accountable.

Contact:

Jeremy Murphy/ jeremymurphy@me.com

SOURCE: SMX (Security Matters) Public Limited

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire

Full conversion of convertible notes reduces long-term liabilities, removes potential equity overhang, and helps position SMX to advance project development and circular-materials strategy

NEW YORK, NY / ACCESS Newswire / January 8, 2026 / SMX (Security Matters) PLC (NASDAQ:SMX; SMXWW), a global pioneer in material-embedded identity and digital traceability, today announced that all $20,625,000 face amount of convertible notes that it sold in December 2025 have been fully converted in accordance with their terms, into an aggregate of 1,230,698 ordinary shares of the Company.

This full conversion of the notes materially reduces SMX’s long-term liabilities, eliminates potential equity overhang associated with convertible instruments, removes restrictions on the Company’s ability to raise capital in the future, and strengthens the Company’s financial position as it advances project development across its circular-materials platform.

With this milestone, SMX enters its next phase of growth with no corporate-level convertible indebtedness and improved financial flexibility.

The Company believes that this is a meaningful balance-sheet inflection point for SMX, as eliminating its convertible debt enhances clarity for investors, reduces structural risk, and allows management to remain focused on executing the Company’s technology roadmap and commercial programs without this financing overhang.

Advancing Material-Embedded Identity at Scale

SMX’s platform is built on molecular-level markers embedded directly into physical materials during manufacturing. These invisible markers create a persistent, tamper-resistant identity that remains with the material throughout its lifecycle-manufacturing, distribution, use, recovery, and reuse.

Unlike external labels, barcodes, or documentation systems that can be removed or lost, SMX’s technology has been developed to allow materials themselves to carry verifiable data, enabling:

• Authentication and origin verification

• Regulatory and sustainability compliance

• Lifecycle traceability and accountability

• Circular recovery and reuse pathways

The Company believes that this approach is increasingly relevant as global industries face tightening environmental regulations, carbon-neutrality mandates, and supply-chain transparency requirements.

Large and Expanding Market Opportunity

SMX operates at the intersection of advanced materials, digital traceability, and sustainability infrastructure, addressing markets measured in the tens of billions of dollars globally.

Across plastics, rubber, and other industrial materials, the Company believes that regulatory pressure and corporate sustainability commitments are accelerating demand for technologies that can verify material origin, composition, and lifecycle outcomes. SMX’s platform is designed to serve manufacturers, brand owners, recyclers, and regulators seeking verifiable, data-anchored solutions rather than aspirational reporting.

By pairing embedded molecular identity with a digital platform, SMX enables materials to become data-bearing assets, supporting new commercial models tied to circularity, compliance, and resource efficiency.

SMX is positioned to advance:

• Ongoing and planned project deployments

• Expansion across industrial and consumer material categories

• Strategic collaborations and pilot programs

• Development of its digital traceability and circular-materials initiatives

The strengthened financial profile supports disciplined execution while preserving optionality as SMX continues to build its global platform.

Contact:

Jeremy Murphy
jeremymurphy@me.com

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: successful launch and implementation of SMX’s existing or future joint projects with manufacturers and other supply chain participants of steel, rubber, fabric 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 involve a number of judgments, risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially. SMX undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements except as required by law.

SOURCE: SMX (Security Matters)

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK / ACCESS Newswire / January 5, 2026 / SMX (NASDAQ:SMX), a leader in molecular marketing and digital tracing solutions, began 2026 fully-financed for the year and uniquely positioned to meet the needs of the expanding sector. The company’s verification and tracing platforms are being adopted across global marketplaces, and it continued the build out of its plastic cycle token.

That focus comes as scrutiny around materials, recycling, and carbon accountability continues to sharpen worldwide. Regulators are asking tougher questions, and companies are being pressed to show their work. SMX has positioned itself squarely in that gap, offering technology that embeds molecular markers directly into materials, creating a permanent, tamper-resistant identity that can be tracked and measured throughout a product’s life.

The approach speaks to a problem many industries now face. Sustainability and recycling claims are often based on estimates or self-reported data, leaving room for uncertainty and risk. SMX’s system replaces approximation with physical proof, giving manufacturers, brands, recyclers, and regulators access to data they can verify rather than take on faith.

The Plastic Cycle Token builds on that foundation. By converting authenticated material events into structured digital records, the token creates a clear, traceable account of recycling and reuse outcomes. In practice, this supports regulatory compliance, strengthens supply-chain accountability, and opens the door to new ways of assigning value to verified circular activity.

In 2025, SMX moved beyond theory and into the field. The Company expanded its international presence through partnerships and pilot programs across multiple regions, testing its platform under real industrial conditions. It also demonstrated that its molecular identity technology can extend beyond plastics, reinforcing a broader ambition to serve as a multi-material verification provider rather than a single-use solution.

Contact:

Jeremy Murphy/ jeremymurphy@me.com

SOURCE: SMX (Security Matters) Public Limited

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK / ACCESS Newswire / January 5, 2026 / SMX (NASDAQ:SMX), with 2026 funding secure, began the new year focused on what matters most: execution, technology rollout, and continued growth of its Plastic Cycle Token ecosystem.

As sustainability requirements shift from voluntary commitments to enforceable standards, companies across industries are being asked to back up origination and environmental claims with real evidence. SMX’s approach is built around that reality. By embedding molecular-level markers directly into materials, the Company makes verification part of the material itself, enabling continuous, reliable tracking through from sourcing the raw material to manufacturing, recycling, and reuse.

That built-in verification is the backbone of SMX’s digital platform and its Plastic Cycle Token framework. By connecting physical material events to structured digital records, SMX allows origination, recycling, recovery, and reuse activity to be documented with confidence. This replaces estimates and self-reporting with measurable proof, helping organizations meet regulatory requirements while opening the door to new models for circular value.

Over the course of 2025, SMX expanded its footprint through partnerships and pilot programs across multiple regions and industrial sectors. These efforts demonstrated that the Company’s technology can scale globally and integrate into existing supply chains without disrupting operations. SMX also extended its platform beyond plastics, reinforcing its broader vision for material verification across a wide range of regulated and industrial products.

Rather than treating verification as an add-on or reporting exercise, SMX is building it as core infrastructure. This approach reflects the growing need for trusted, auditable data as industries adapt to tighter regulations and a more accountability-driven, low-carbon economy.

Contact

Jeremy Murphy / jeremymurphy@me.com

SOURCE: SMX (Security Matters) Public Limited

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK / ACCESS Newswire / January 5, 2026 / SMX (NASDAQ:SMX) has entered 2026 fully financed through the first quarter, giving the Company the flexibility to stay focused on execution, expanding its platform, and continuing to develop its Plastic Cycle Token as a practical foundation for the circular economy. The Company is investing in the rollout of its molecular marking and material verification technologies, strengthening its digital platform, and driving real-world adoption across global supply chains where transparency, proof, and regulatory alignment are no longer optional.

As governments tighten requirements around origination, carbon, recycling, and materials disclosure, companies are being asked to prove what their data represents, not just report it. SMX addresses this challenge by embedding invisible molecular identifiers directly into materials, creating a durable record that travels with a product from manufacturing through reuse, recycling, and end-of-life.

That physical-to-digital connection is the foundation of SMX’s Plastic Cycle Token strategy. The token framework is designed to capture verified material lifecycle events and convert them into reliable, auditable data. This allows sustainability outcomes to be measured based on evidence rather than estimates, giving stakeholders a clearer way to demonstrate compliance, manage risk, and create value from circular activity.

In 2025, SMX made steady progress toward establishing verification as core infrastructure. The Company expanded internationally through partnerships and pilot programs, validating its technology across different regions, industries, and materials. These efforts showed that molecular-level identity can survive industrial processing and still deliver accurate tracking without disrupting existing operations.

SMX also extended its platform beyond plastics, reinforcing its evolution into a multi-material verification company with applications across manufacturing, recycling, and regulated supply chains. This broader scope supports the Company’s long-term goal of creating a unified verification layer that works for regulators, enterprises, and sustainability-focused markets alike.

With funding secured and key partnerships in place, SMX enters 2026 focused on disciplined growth, refining its platform, and advancing its verification and tokenization strategy. As sustainability expectations shift from ambition to accountability, the Company believes demand for trusted, verifiable material data will continue to grow, placing SMX at the center of that transition.

CONTACT:

Jeremy Murphy / jeremymurphy@me.com

SOURCE: SMX (Security Matters)

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK / ACCESS Newswire / January 5, 2026 / Fully financed through Q1, tech pioneer SMX (NASDAQ:SMX) has begun 2026 with an eye on accelerating adoption of its Plastic Cycle Token and verification platform

As businesses worldwide face mounting pressure to meet carbon-reduction targets and comply with a growing patchwork of regional and governmental regulations, SMX has emerged as a practical solution provider across the value chain. The Company’s proprietary marking, tracking, measuring, and digital platform technologies allow materials to be authenticated and followed from where the raw materials are sourced to production through reuse and end-of-life, helping organizations move toward a low-carbon economy with greater confidence and clarity.

The company’s 2026 focus also includes building long-term enterprise value by expanding real-world deployment of its molecular identity technology and further strengthening its digital infrastructure. Its Plastic Cycle Token is central to this effort, translating real material lifecycle activity into verifiable, auditable data. By doing so, recycling, recovery, and sustainability outcomes can be measured more accurately, supporting regulatory compliance, transparent reporting, and new forms of value tied to verified circular practices.

During 2025, SMX established multiple international partnerships across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, extending the reach of its technology into manufacturing, logistics, and recycling environments. The Company also expanded the use of its molecular identity platform beyond plastics into additional industrial materials, underscoring the flexibility and scalability of its approach. At the same time, it continued to enhance its digital platform to support verification at scale. These advancements enable material identities to persist through processing, reuse, and recycling, reinforcing SMX’s role as an infrastructure provider at a moment when trust, traceability, and proof are increasingly required for market access and regulatory approval.

CONTACT:

Jeremy Murphy / jeremymurphy@me.com

SOURCE: SMX (Security Matters)

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire

NEW YORK, NY / ACCESS Newswire / December 31, 2025 / There’s a structural story playing out beneath the surface of the global supply chain, and it has little to do with trends or branding cycles. It’s about what happens when materials stop being anonymous.

SMX (NASDAQ:SMX) has been building a platform that embeds identity into matter itself, allowing materials to carry proof rather than rely on reputation. That same logic appeared in the expansion into industrial rubber gloves, where anonymity was the reason recovery and accountability never stood a chance. In fashion, denim, and luxury goods, the issue shows up differently, but the root cause is identical. Once materials lose their identity, trust becomes an assumption rather than a fact.

This is where SMX’s most recent deals fit together, not as isolated category plays, but as responses to a market that no longer accepts “trust me” as an answer.

Reputation Breaks When Supply Chains Stretch

Luxury was built on reputation. A storied brand, a heritage workshop, a familiar label for decades, that was enough. Today’s supply chains don’t stay close to home. Products move through multiple manufacturers, processors, logistics hubs, resale platforms, and secondary markets. Documentation ages, certifications detach, and provenance gets diluted along the way.

When proof lives on paper, it eventually separates from the product. When that happens, even authentic goods lose their certainty. Trust weakens not because brands are dishonest, but because the system no longer preserves truth as materials move.

That vulnerability is exactly what SMX is designed to address.

Denim Makes the Weak Spot Obvious

Denim is not couture, and that’s why it matters. It’s high-volume, heavily processed, blended, dyed, recycled, and reworked. Once cotton fibers are transformed, claims about recycled content or origin become impossible to verify unless the material itself carries that information forward.

SMX’s expansion into denim and recycled denim puts stress on the system in the most honest way. If identity can persist through denim’s complexity, it can persist anywhere. This turns a claim of recycled content into something measurable, enforceable, and verifiable, even after multiple transformations.

Denim becomes proof that scale does not have to destroy accountability.

Luxury Has More to Lose

Where denim exposes the flaw, luxury absorbs the consequences. In high-end fashion and couture, provenance is not a marketing add-on. It is part of the value. When authenticity cannot be verified beyond the point of sale, confidence erodes across resale markets, insurance underwriting, and long-term brand equity.

Traditional tools like certificates and audits were never designed to travel with the product indefinitely. They can be lost, forged, or separated. When identity is embedded directly into the textile or material, verification no longer depends on external documentation. It becomes intrinsic.

Luxury stops relying on assumptions and starts relying on evidence.

Embedded Identity Changes Expectations

Once identity lives inside the material, verification becomes the default rather than the exception. Products can authenticate themselves as they move across borders, platforms, and owners. Recycled content can be confirmed instead of estimated. Regulators can observe compliance rather than infer it. Resale platforms gain confidence. Insurers gain clarity. Consumers gain certainty.

This shift quietly changes the economics of trust. Proof becomes portable. Accountability becomes continuous. Materials no longer need to be explained; they can be examined.

That’s the architectural upgrade SMX is delivering across categories that were never designed for transparency.

Proof as Infrastructure

Viewed together, rubber gloves, denim, and luxury are not separate stories. They are iterations of the same thesis: proof has become infrastructure.

Modern commerce no longer revolves solely around physical goods. It revolves around certainty. Markets increasingly price confidence, not just craftsmanship. When materials carry persistent identity, they enable authentication across resale and reuse markets, verified recycled-content tracking, compliance that survives scrutiny, and risk assessment grounded in data rather than declarations.

This is not a premium feature reserved for luxury. It is becoming a functional requirement in global supply chains.

Brands, regulators, and consumers are not asking for traceability out of idealism. They are demanding it because reputation alone can no longer carry the weight of complex, globalized production. Identity embedded at the material level restores the link between what something claims to be and what it actually is.

That is the connective tissue across SMX’s recent deals. Materials should not lose their truth when they leave the factory; they should carry it with them. SMX’s pace of deal-making in 2025 shows that idea being put to work.

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

This information contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These statements are based on current expectations, estimates, forecasts, and assumptions regarding future events involving SMX (NASDAQ: SMX), its technologies, its partnership activities, and its development of molecular marking systems for recycled PET and other materials. Forward-looking statements are not historical facts. They involve risks, uncertainties, and factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied.

Forward looking statements in this editorial include, but are not limited to, its announced capital facility and its terms, expectations regarding the integration of SMX’s molecular markers into U.S. recycling markets; the potential for FDA-compliant markers to enable recycled PET to enter food-grade and other regulated applications; the scalability of SMX solutions across diverse global supply chains; anticipated adoption of identity-based verification systems by manufacturers, recyclers, regulators, or brand owners; the potential economic impact of turning recycled plastics into tradeable or monetizable assets; the expected performance of SMX’s Plastic Cycle Token or other digital verification instruments; and the belief that molecular-level authentication may influence pricing, compliance, sustainability reporting, or financial strategies used within the plastics sector.

These forward-looking statements are also subject to assumptions regarding regulatory developments, market demand for authenticated recycled content, the pace of corporate adoption of traceability technology, global economic conditions, supply chain constraints, evolving environmental policies, and general industry behavior relating to sustainability commitments and recycling mandates. Risks include, but are not limited to, changes in FDA or international regulatory standards; technological challenges in large-scale deployment of molecular markers; competitive innovations from other companies; operational disruptions in recycling or plastics manufacturing; fluctuations in pricing for virgin or recycled plastics; and the broader economic conditions that influence capital investment and industrial activity.

Detailed risk factors are described in SMX’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. These statements speak only as of the date of publication. SMX undertakes no obligation to update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events, changes in circumstances, or new information, except as required by applicable law.

EMAIL: info@securitymattersltd.com

SOURCE: SMX (Security Matters) Public Limited

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK / ACCESS Newswire / December 31, 2025 / At first glance, the reaction is predictable. Gloves? Disposable rubber gloves used for minutes and discarded by the billions. The immediate question almost asks itself: why bother?

That reaction is exactly why SMX (NASDAQ:SMX) is focused here.

The expansion of SMX’s molecular marking and digital identity platform into industrial rubber gloves is not about monitoring individual products or pretending that gloves are suddenly recyclable. It is about addressing the structural failure that has kept entire categories of material anonymous, unaccountable, and permanently excluded from any meaningful recovery or verification framework.

Gloves are not ignored because they are unimportant. They are ignored because once they are used, no one can safely or reliably decide what to do with them.

The Real Problem Isn’t Gloves, It’s Anonymity

Industrial gloves fail every recovery conversation for the same reason. Once discarded, they lose their identity. Latex, nitrile, neoprene, blended compounds, all become indistinguishable after use. Add the possibility of biological or chemical exposure, and recyclers are forced into a defensive posture.

Without verified information, the only safe assumption is the worst case.

That is why gloves are landfilled or incinerated at scale. Not because recycling demand does not exist, but because uncertainty creates risk, liability, and cost. No downstream operator can confidently determine what they are handling, where it came from, or how it should be processed.

SMX is not trying to override that reality. It is removing the uncertainty that created it.

Identity Comes Before Any Outcome

SMX embeds invisible molecular markers directly into rubber compounds during manufacturing. These markers persist through use, handling, washing, shredding, and downstream processing. Even after a glove has been used, its material identity remains verifiable.

That does not mean every glove should be recycled. It means every glove can be classified.

Classification is the missing step that most sustainability conversations skip. When material identity persists, waste streams can be segregated based on verified attributes rather than assumptions. Decisions become informed instead of precautionary. The system gains the ability to choose appropriate outcomes instead of defaulting to disposal.

That’s important. You cannot recover what you cannot verify. And this verification isn’t purely about recycling.

Safer Disposal Is Still Progress

One of the fastest ways this story gets misunderstood is by assuming success only counts if gloves are reused or recycled. That is not how industrial waste works, and it is not how SMX is defining success.

In many cases, the correct outcome for used gloves will still be destruction. Incineration is not a failure when it is intentional, controlled, and documented. What changes with traceable material is not the endpoint, but the quality of the decision that leads there.

When gloves carry verified identity, waste streams can be segregated properly, handled according to known risk profiles, and processed with confidence rather than blanket caution. Institutions reduce liability. Compliance reporting shifts from estimates to proof. Waste handlers stop treating everything as worst-case by default.

Accountability does not require reuse. It requires clarity.

Where Recovery Becomes Possible

Once identity clarification persists beyond first use, another door quietly opens. Not all glove waste is created equal. Gloves used in food processing, manufacturing clean rooms, and certain industrial environments often have well-defined exposure profiles, yet they are treated no differently than medical waste because there has never been a way to prove they are different.

Material-level identity changes that dynamic. When composition and origin are verifiable, selective recovery becomes feasible. Certain streams can be downcycled into secondary rubber applications. Others can be routed into certified non-medical reuse pathways. Decisions stop being theoretical and start being operational.

Just as important, identity creates feedback. Manufacturers gain visibility into which formulations survive recovery and which do not, informing redesign rather than marketing claims. This is how circularity actually forms, deliberately and grounded in evidence.

What’s Actually Being Built

The upcoming pilot programs bring together manufacturers, major end-users, waste handlers, and recyclers to validate these workflows under real operating conditions. The objective is not to promise universal recovery, but to prove that identity embedded at the material level survives reality and improves downstream decision-making without disrupting existing systems.

Gloves are not unique in their disposability. They are simply one of the clearest examples of how anonymity has limited accountability across entire classes of material.

SMX is not tracking gloves. It is removing the condition that forces waste to disappear without consequence. Once material stops being anonymous, every downstream option improves. Disposal becomes intentional. Recovery becomes selective. Redesign becomes informed. Claims become provable.

Gloves may be short-lived, but the shift they represent is not. Circular systems do not begin with recycling; they begin with knowing exactly what is in hand. SMX provides the platform that makes that possible. Uniquely so.

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

This information contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These statements are based on current expectations, estimates, forecasts, and assumptions regarding future events involving SMX (NASDAQ: SMX), its technologies, its partnership activities, and its development of molecular marking systems for recycled PET and other materials. Forward-looking statements are not historical facts. They involve risks, uncertainties, and factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied.

Forward looking statements in this editorial include, but are not limited to, its announced capital facility and its terms, expectations regarding the integration of SMX’s molecular markers into U.S. recycling markets; the potential for FDA-compliant markers to enable recycled PET to enter food-grade and other regulated applications; the scalability of SMX solutions across diverse global supply chains; anticipated adoption of identity-based verification systems by manufacturers, recyclers, regulators, or brand owners; the potential economic impact of turning recycled plastics into tradeable or monetizable assets; the expected performance of SMX’s Plastic Cycle Token or other digital verification instruments; and the belief that molecular-level authentication may influence pricing, compliance, sustainability reporting, or financial strategies used within the plastics sector.

These forward-looking statements are also subject to assumptions regarding regulatory developments, market demand for authenticated recycled content, the pace of corporate adoption of traceability technology, global economic conditions, supply chain constraints, evolving environmental policies, and general industry behavior relating to sustainability commitments and recycling mandates. Risks include, but are not limited to, changes in FDA or international regulatory standards; technological challenges in large-scale deployment of molecular markers; competitive innovations from other companies; operational disruptions in recycling or plastics manufacturing; fluctuations in pricing for virgin or recycled plastics; and the broader economic conditions that influence capital investment and industrial activity.

Detailed risk factors are described in SMX’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. These statements speak only as of the date of publication. SMX undertakes no obligation to update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events, changes in circumstances, or new information, except as required by applicable law.

EMAIL: info@securitymattersltd.com

SOURCE: SMX (Security Matters) Public Limited

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire

NEW YORK, NY / ACCESS Newswire / December 31, 2025 / Silver has never needed much attention to matter. It sits quietly inside the systems modern economies rely on: power generation, electronics, data infrastructure, and advanced manufacturing. That quiet importance is exactly why recent shifts in the silver market deserve a closer look.

Global silver supply chains are beginning to fragment. Not abruptly, and not catastrophically, but decisively. Fragmentation simply means that silver is no longer treated as a single, uniform global pool but as multiple parallel supply streams governed by different regulatory and commercial rules. As that shift takes hold, assumptions that once made the market efficient begin to lose their reliability.

China’s role in this evolution is often highlighted for its scale, not for controversy. As one of the world’s most influential silver processors and refiners, even incremental changes in oversight naturally ripple through global markets. Export licensing and tighter regulatory frameworks are not unusual when materials become strategically important. Similar dynamics would emerge if the United States applied comparable controls to semiconductors, aerospace alloys, or advanced battery materials.

The Weakness in Assumptions-Based Markets Exposed

The problem with the silver market is this: for decades, silver traded on assumptions that no longer hold. An ounce was an ounce. Refiners were trusted. Documentation was enough. Markets moved efficiently because they believed they could. That belief was not naïve; it was simply untested by geopolitical pressure.

Once geopolitics enters the equation, those assumptions erode. Export licenses do not apply evenly. Compliance scrutiny varies by jurisdiction. End-use controls introduce distinctions that paperwork struggles to keep up with. Supply chains that once felt interchangeable become tiered.

Tiered markets reward verification. That’s starting to show, with buyers responding differently to markets. Instead of treating silver as a single global commodity, industrial users are beginning to assess it by source, processing path, and regulatory profile. The question is no longer how much silver costs, but which silver can move without friction.

This is where SMX (NASDAQ:SMX) fits with precision.

SMX Offers Tools Over Force

SMX does not attempt to force fragmented markets back into uniformity. It does not rely on centralized oversight or layered paperwork to smooth over differences. Instead, it allows market participants to navigate fragmentation with clarity.

By embedding molecular identifiers directly into silver, SMX enables each batch to carry its own history. Origin, processing pathway, compliance status, and custody trail travel with the metal itself. Verification does not depend on counterparties or documentation. It depends on the material.

In fragmented markets, that history determines access.

Now, as supply chains splinter, a new distinction emerges. Preferred silver. Not as a label, but as a qualification. Silver that clears customs without delay. Silver that satisfies regulators without negotiation. Silver that does not trigger financing questions or audit risk. It simply moves.

SMX makes that preference possible without slowing trade or inserting gatekeepers. The verification lives in the metal itself, allowing regulators, banks, and counterparties to get answers without friction. That’s not all.

Fragmentation also accelerates pressure on recycling. As primary supply tightens, secondary silver flows increase. Without verification, recycled material introduces ambiguity that buyers and regulators increasingly reject. Claims become harder to validate, audits slow down, and risk builds quietly in the background. That need not be the case.

SMX Provides Immutable Identity

With SMX, recycled silver retains traceability. Virgin and secondary supply can be distinguished without guesswork or double-counting. This is not about sustainability branding or narrative alignment. It is about admissibility. Silver that cannot be qualified will not be welcomed into regulated supply chains, regardless of price.

Markets always assign premiums to certainty. In fragmented environments, certainty commands disproportionate value. That premium does not appear on a price chart immediately. It shows up in speed, financing terms, insurance costs, and access. Keep in mind, SMX does not create premiums by restricting supply. It enables them by reducing uncertainty. That distinction matters because it positions SMX to capitalize on open, inclusive silver markets rather than on artificial scarcity.

The long view is straightforward. Silver is not becoming rare. It is becoming regulated. Regulated materials do not move on trust. They move on proof. Supply chains that adapt early gain speed, credibility, and resilience. Those that do not slow down, even when the underlying demand remains strong.

SMX is not betting on fragmentation. However, it is built for it. And once fragmentation takes hold, markets will begin to reward proof over assumption, placing SMX technology exactly where the market, and all its players, need it.

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

This information contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These statements are based on current expectations, estimates, forecasts, and assumptions regarding future events involving SMX (NASDAQ: SMX), its technologies, its partnership activities, and its development of molecular marking systems for recycled PET and other materials. Forward-looking statements are not historical facts. They involve risks, uncertainties, and factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied.

Forward looking statements in this editorial include, but are not limited to, its announced capital facility and its terms, expectations regarding the integration of SMX’s molecular markers into U.S. recycling markets; the potential for FDA-compliant markers to enable recycled PET to enter food-grade and other regulated applications; the scalability of SMX solutions across diverse global supply chains; anticipated adoption of identity-based verification systems by manufacturers, recyclers, regulators, or brand owners; the potential economic impact of turning recycled plastics into tradeable or monetizable assets; the expected performance of SMX’s Plastic Cycle Token or other digital verification instruments; and the belief that molecular-level authentication may influence pricing, compliance, sustainability reporting, or financial strategies used within the plastics sector.

These forward-looking statements are also subject to assumptions regarding regulatory developments, market demand for authenticated recycled content, the pace of corporate adoption of traceability technology, global economic conditions, supply chain constraints, evolving environmental policies, and general industry behavior relating to sustainability commitments and recycling mandates. Risks include, but are not limited to, changes in FDA or international regulatory standards; technological challenges in large-scale deployment of molecular markers; competitive innovations from other companies; operational disruptions in recycling or plastics manufacturing; fluctuations in pricing for virgin or recycled plastics; and the broader economic conditions that influence capital investment and industrial activity.

Detailed risk factors are described in SMX’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. These statements speak only as of the date of publication. SMX undertakes no obligation to update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events, changes in circumstances, or new information, except as required by applicable law.

EMAIL: info@securitymattersltd.com

SOURCE: SMX (Security Matters) Public Limited

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