Fusion Startup Marathon Fusion Claims It Can Turn Mercury into Gold via Nuclear Transmutation

Marathon Fusion, a U.S. fusion company, announced that high‑energy neutrons generated in a deuterium‑tritium fusion reaction can irradiate mercury‑198, producing a radioactive intermediate that decays into stable gold‑197. The company’s research paper reports a production rate ten times higher than CERN’s record, though the actual yields remain microscopic—still only microscopic quantities today, with a target of milligram‑scale output by 2027. Marathon’s CEO, Kyle Schiller, says the technology could attract jewelers and serve as a store of value, but industry experts like Nikos Kavalis of Metals Focus note that the process is far from commercially viable and that gold miners will likely continue to operate for the foreseeable future. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong compared the potential “net‑new gold” to lab‑grown diamonds, emphasizing that Bitcoin’s capped supply of 21 million coins cannot be increased by such a process.