October 24, 2026: A centuries-old dream of turning ordinary metal into gold may have found a modern scientific twist, but a US startup Marathon Fusion’s latest claim is yet to pass the test of independent verification.
Marathon Fusion, a San Francisco-based company, announced on October 21 that it had successfully converted mercury into stable gold using neutrons generated through nuclear fusion. The startup claimed its method achieved a gold-production rate ten times higher than a benchmark reported by CERN in 2025, although it has not released enough technical data for independent experts to assess the results.
The claim draws on nuclear transmutation, a process that changes one chemical element into another by altering its atomic nucleus. According to the company, its approach involves exposing mercury-198 to high-energy neutrons produced during fusion reactions. This process creates mercury-197, a radioactive isotope that subsequently decays into stable gold-197.
The process differs fundamentally from conventional chemistry, which can rearrange atoms but cannot change one element into another. Nuclear reactions, by contrast, can alter an atom’s identity by changing its nucleus.
While the science behind nuclear transmutation is established, the startup’s specific achievement and its potential for practical gold production remain unconfirmed.
How does US Startup Marathon Fusion’s claim compare with CERN’s results?
In 2025, researchers at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, reported producing extremely small quantities of gold during experiments at the Large Hadron Collider. The experiments, conducted between 2015 and 2018, generated an estimated 29 picograms of gold, an amount far too small for commercial use.
Marathon Fusion says its technology can achieve a production rate ten times higher than that benchmark. However, the company has not publicly disclosed the total quantity of gold produced, its purity, the efficiency of its recovery process or the cost of production.
These details are crucial to determining whether the reported advance represents a meaningful technological achievement beyond a laboratory demonstration. The possibility of manufacturing gold in a laboratory raises an obvious question: could the technology eventually affect gold prices?
Marathon Fusion has previously estimated that a future fusion power plant could produce around two tonnes of gold annually. However, this remains a projection rather than a demonstrated commercial capability. Its realisation would depend on the successful development of fusion reactors capable of operating reliably and economically at scale.
Even if the underlying process works as described, producing gold commercially would involve substantial infrastructure, sophisticated nuclear technology, significant investment and strict radiation-safety controls. The economics would also need to compete with conventional gold mining and recycling.
For now, there is little basis to suggest that artificially produced gold could disrupt global supplies or influence market prices in the near term.
Beyond gold production, Marathon Fusion is also exploring the potential use of its technology to produce radioactive isotopes for applications in cancer diagnosis and treatment.
The announcement has revived interest in an ambition that once belonged to alchemists, but scientific credibility will depend on evidence rather than headline-making claims. Independent replication, detailed technical disclosures and a clear demonstration of production costs will be essential to establishing whether the startup’s approach can deliver on its promise.
