Two tons of gold could be made in a year. Bitcoin still has only 21 million 🦖
The U.S. fusion startup Marathon Fusion published a paper this month
🔭 进群看资金去哪
The idea is to bombard mercury-198 with high-energy neutrons from deuterium-tritium fusion, producing stable gold-197 through radioactive decay
Someone has given this the name “the infinite gold supply loophole” ⚗️
The model in the paper says a fusion reactor with one gigawatt of thermal power could produce around 2 tons of gold a year
For comparison, according to the World Gold Council, global mined gold production in 2025 was 3,672 tons
A future fusion reactor would account for only about 0.005% of annual global production
So the real contrast isn’t in the output. It’s in the expectations
The wholesale price of lab-grown diamonds has fallen by more than 90% since 2018 📉
The same narrative is now being applied to gold
First, let’s look at what they’ve actually achieved
The company says its gold production rate is 10 times the record set at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research
But CERN’s ALICE experiment produced only around 29 picograms of gold nuclei in total between 2015 and 2018
And those gold nuclei existed for less than a second
Marathon’s own engineer Jake Harter admits that the quantities are still microscopic
They only hope to reach milligram-scale production by 2027
There’s another detail few people mention: the gold produced is radioactive
It has to be stored for more than ten years before its radiation level drops to that of a banana
Metals Focus Managing Director Nikos Kavalis put it plainly:
“We’re still a long way from meaningful production, and there’s no proof of commercial viability either.”
Investment platform analyst Nagham Hassan added another point:
Diamond prices fell because factories can replicate them. Making gold requires complex infrastructure that simply doesn’t exist today
University of Basel professor Fabian Schär stated the obvious:
When the supply of any asset increases substantially, its price gets pushed down. Gold is no exception
My view is that this will have close to zero impact on gold prices in the short term
The first fusion reactor is at least a decade away
But this challenges a different pillar
For thousands of years, humanity has treated gold as an anchor of value because there’s only so much of it in the ground
Once the idea that it can be made takes hold—even if it’s just 29 picograms in a lab—the premium in its price based on absolute scarcity will start to erode
By contrast, Bitcoin’s 21 million limit is hard-coded into its protocol
As one exchange boss put it perfectly: “You can invent anything, but you can’t invent a way to make more Bitcoin.”
That’s why every time the myth of gold’s limited supply gets challenged, Bitcoin’s narrative gets a little stronger
Still, I don’t want to overstate the case. Bitcoin is still several times more volatile than gold
In the short term, safe-haven money won’t switch its preferred asset because of a single paper
Do you think technology will break gold’s scarcity?
Or is this just fireworks in a laboratory?
Let’s talk in the comments: would you rather hold gold ten years from now, or Bitcoin?
Every day, I bring you the debate over the scarcity of gold and Bitcoin—not just what’s happening in the news, but the logic and opportunities behind it 👀🚀
Tap my profile picture to watch the livestream
The U.S. fusion startup Marathon Fusion published a paper this month
🔭 进群看资金去哪
The idea is to bombard mercury-198 with high-energy neutrons from deuterium-tritium fusion, producing stable gold-197 through radioactive decay
Someone has given this the name “the infinite gold supply loophole” ⚗️
The model in the paper says a fusion reactor with one gigawatt of thermal power could produce around 2 tons of gold a year
For comparison, according to the World Gold Council, global mined gold production in 2025 was 3,672 tons
A future fusion reactor would account for only about 0.005% of annual global production
So the real contrast isn’t in the output. It’s in the expectations
The wholesale price of lab-grown diamonds has fallen by more than 90% since 2018 📉
The same narrative is now being applied to gold
First, let’s look at what they’ve actually achieved
The company says its gold production rate is 10 times the record set at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research
But CERN’s ALICE experiment produced only around 29 picograms of gold nuclei in total between 2015 and 2018
And those gold nuclei existed for less than a second
Marathon’s own engineer Jake Harter admits that the quantities are still microscopic
They only hope to reach milligram-scale production by 2027
There’s another detail few people mention: the gold produced is radioactive
It has to be stored for more than ten years before its radiation level drops to that of a banana
Metals Focus Managing Director Nikos Kavalis put it plainly:
“We’re still a long way from meaningful production, and there’s no proof of commercial viability either.”
Investment platform analyst Nagham Hassan added another point:
Diamond prices fell because factories can replicate them. Making gold requires complex infrastructure that simply doesn’t exist today
University of Basel professor Fabian Schär stated the obvious:
When the supply of any asset increases substantially, its price gets pushed down. Gold is no exception
My view is that this will have close to zero impact on gold prices in the short term
The first fusion reactor is at least a decade away
But this challenges a different pillar
For thousands of years, humanity has treated gold as an anchor of value because there’s only so much of it in the ground
Once the idea that it can be made takes hold—even if it’s just 29 picograms in a lab—the premium in its price based on absolute scarcity will start to erode
By contrast, Bitcoin’s 21 million limit is hard-coded into its protocol
As one exchange boss put it perfectly: “You can invent anything, but you can’t invent a way to make more Bitcoin.”
That’s why every time the myth of gold’s limited supply gets challenged, Bitcoin’s narrative gets a little stronger
Still, I don’t want to overstate the case. Bitcoin is still several times more volatile than gold
In the short term, safe-haven money won’t switch its preferred asset because of a single paper
Do you think technology will break gold’s scarcity?
Or is this just fireworks in a laboratory?
Let’s talk in the comments: would you rather hold gold ten years from now, or Bitcoin?
Every day, I bring you the debate over the scarcity of gold and Bitcoin—not just what’s happening in the news, but the logic and opportunities behind it 👀🚀
Tap my profile picture to watch the livestream
