NEW YORK, NY / ACCESS Newswire / December 16, 2025 / Every market cycle introduces a new category of assets that feels almost inevitable in hindsight. Sometimes it is a technological leap. Sometimes it's a financial instrument. Sometimes it's a shift in how value is measured. Today, a growing number of investors are beginning to ask whether verified recovery is emerging as the next major asset class. The idea has been around for years, but no company has created a system capable of turning recovery into a measurable economic unit. SMX (NASDAQ: SMX) has changed that conversation with its Plastic Cycle Token, and the market is starting to take note.

Verified recovery has always existed in theory. Companies recover materials, recyclers process them, and manufacturers reintroduce them into the supply chain. The problem is that these actions have historically been difficult to validate. Reporting depends on paperwork, self-attestation, and estimates that vary widely between regions. That uncertainty makes it nearly impossible to build a financial structure around recovery. Markets need clarity, consistency, and data that can withstand scrutiny. SMX built a verification rail that gives them exactly that. With molecular identity markers applied to materials, recovery events become traceable and provable.

The Plastic Cycle Token takes this further by converting verified recovery into a digital representation that markets can understand and interact with. It is not symbolic. It is not speculative. It is tied directly to events that happened in the real world and were scientifically confirmed. Investors are beginning to recognize that this creates an entirely new economic category. Recovery is no longer just a regulatory obligation. It becomes a measurable performance metric with market-ready documentation. Once investors can confirm that a recovery event occurred, they can value it. And once they can value it, it becomes an asset.

The Message is Resonating

This shift is resonating because it reconnects sustainability with economics in a way that has been missing. Traditional environmental credits often rely on projections or generalized assumptions, which undermines confidence and limits their usefulness. The PCT represents verified outcomes. That distinction matters. It allows markets to reward actual recovery rather than modeled recovery. This opens the door for recovery to evolve from a cost center into a revenue-linked activity supported by transparent data. Investors appreciate frameworks that elevate real performance, and SMX is offering a foundation for exactly that.

Digital asset traders see an even broader implication. Verified recovery introduces a digital asset that behaves like a commodity but is anchored in scientific truth. This is the type of structure that digital asset markets value. A token that carries proof, and it cannot be altered or retroactively adjusted. It reflects actions that hold weight in supply chains, regulatory environments, and corporate reporting. As more companies adopt verification systems, the demand for authenticated recovery data increases. That demand becomes economic weight behind the PCT.

SMX is not asking the market to imagine a future where these systems matter. It is showing how they already fit into emerging compliance requirements and operational standards. The PCT positions verified recovery as an asset that industries can use to meet expectations while building measurable value.

Embracing Verifiable Data

The market interest reflects an understanding that this model has scalability far beyond plastics. Any resource that moves through a cycle of creation, use, and recovery can eventually benefit from similar verification.

Investors are treating verified recovery differently because it sits at the intersection of transparency, economics and digital enablement. It is rare for a new asset class to emerge from a fundamental operational action, but SMX has highlighted how recovery can become precisely that. The Plastic Cycle Token is not redefining sustainability. It is redefining how markets capture and express the value of recovery. Interest is growing because investors understand a simple truth. When proof becomes measurable, it becomes valuable. And once something becomes valuable, markets build around 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

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: matters relating to the Company's fight against abusive and possibly illegal trading tactics against the Company's stock; successful launch and implementation of SMX's joint projects with manufacturers and other supply chain participants of steel, rubber 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 current expectations, forecasts and assumptions, and involve a number of judgments, risks and uncertainties. Accordingly, forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing views as of any subsequent date, and no obligation is undertaken to update forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date they were made, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required under applicable securities laws. As a result of a number of known and unknown risks and uncertainties, actual results or performance may be materially different from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Some factors that could cause actual results to differ include: the ability to maintain the listing of the Company's shares on Nasdaq; changes in applicable laws or regulations; any lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on SMX's business; the ability to implement business plans, forecasts, and other expectations, and identify and realize additional opportunities; the risk of downturns and the possibility of rapid change in the highly competitive industry in which SMX operates; the risk that SMX and its current and future collaborators are unable to successfully develop and commercialize SMX's products or services, or experience significant delays in doing so; the risk that the Company may never achieve or sustain profitability; the risk that the Company will need to raise additional capital to execute its business plan, which may not be available on acceptable terms or at all; the risk that the Company experiences difficulties in managing its growth and expanding operations; the risk that third-party suppliers and manufacturers are not able to fully and timely meet their obligations; the risk that SMX is unable to secure or protect its intellectual property; the possibility that SMX may be adversely affected by other economic, business, and/or competitive factors; and other risks and uncertainties described in SMX's filings from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Contact: info@securitymattersltd.com

SOURCE: SMX (Security Matters) Public Limited