A Silicon Valley startup claims it can turn mercury into gold.
San Francisco, California-based Marathon Fusion is proposing a process that uses nuclear fusion to turn mercury into gold — something that has been sought by people for thousands of years.
"Unlike previous attempts, our method is massively scalable, pragmatically achievable, and economically irresistible," Marathon Fusion said on its website.
"Using our approach, power plants can generate five thousand kilograms of gold per year, per gigawatt of electricity generation (~2.5 GWth), without any compromise to fuel self-sufficiency or power output."
In a Cornell University scientific paper submitted July 17, Marathon Fusion said it's possible to use high-energy neutrons from a fusion reactor to bombard mercury-198, turning it into mercury-197, which then decays into stable gold-197 over a matter of days.
"This marks the beginning of a new Golden Age. Not only for the production of critical minerals, but also for energy, prosperity, and scientific discovery," Marathon Fusion said.
The submitted paper has not been peer reviewed yet, The Daily Hodl reported.
Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and other leading Wall Street investment firms are forecasting gold will reach a $4,000 milestone by the middle of 2026, Investor's Business Daily reports.
That would be just 14 months after gold, which has risen 28% in 2025, reached a record high of $3,500 an ounce in April — driven by geopolitical uncertainty, the U.S. trade war, and increased flows into exchange-traded funds backed by gold.
Marathon Fusion suggested that its latest discovery could lead to creating other precious metals such as "palladium, synthesizing medical isotopes at scale, and producing materials for nuclear batteries."
"Alchemy-native fusion reactors can also be rethought to take advantage of relaxed economic constraints, opening up opportunities in simpler and more scalable approaches," Marathon Fusion said.
Dr. Dan Brunner, former chief technological officer of Commonwealth Fusion Systems, is a scientific adviser to Marathon Fusion.
"The technology described could have a major impact on the economics of fusion energy if it's able to be fully realized and integrated into upcoming power plants," Brunner said. "Improved economics could further relax some engineering and scientific requirements, accelerating the path to commercial deployment.
"This is potentially highly impactful, and I'll be paying close attention to the results of rigorous peer review."
Marathon Fusion was founded in 2023 by Adam Rutkowski, previously a propulsion engineer at SpaceX and PhD candidate in Plasma Physics at Princeton University, and Kyle Schiller, previously a fellow in science policy at Schmidt Futures.
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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