NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK / ACCESS Newswire / February 9, 2026 / Capital is easy to misunderstand in public markets. Too often, it's treated as a static number rather than a strategic tool. In reality, capital only matters if it alters how a company operates once it's in place. Otherwise, it's just a figure on a page, impressive in theory and inert in practice.

The more important question isn't how much capital exists, but what it enables. Does it remove execution constraints, or merely delay them? Does it help build durable platforms or short-cycle stories that depend on constant momentum?

That distinction is central to the recent amendment to the equity line of credit (ELOC) announced by SMX (NASDAQ: SMX).

The amendment increases SMX's total capital commitment to $250 million and extends capital visibility into 2028. While it's easy to view that headline through a dilution lens, doing so misses the point. This isn't a balance-sheet story. It's a timing story.

When the Capital Clock Moves, Execution Changes

Short capital horizons produce predictable behavior. Timelines compress. Integrations get rushed. Strategy starts bending toward financing windows instead of operational readiness. Even strong platforms can lose discipline when time becomes scarce.

Extending capital visibility changes that dynamic.

With the capital clock pushed out, SMX can operate from a position of continuity rather than urgency. Decisions can be sequenced around readiness and integration, not timing pressure. For a company building verification infrastructure across physical materials, regulatory regimes, and global supply chains, that shift isn't cosmetic. It's foundational.

Time reshapes behavior. In SMX's case, added runway translates into clearer execution, steadier decision-making, and the ability to scale strategy with capital already in place.

Which leads to the question investors should be asking next.

So What Now? What Does This Actually Enable?

The answer isn't about spending money. It's about removing friction.

First, extended capital visibility allows SMX to advance platform implementations without being forced into serial deployment. The company's solutions aren't lightweight software installs. They involve physical materials, sensing technologies, verification layers, and regulatory alignment. Those implementations require coordination, onboarding, and early-stage scaling costs.

With capital continuity in place, SMX can support multiple implementations in parallel, moving when counterparties are ready rather than when financing aligns.

Second, the runway strengthens SMX's posture in enterprise and government-level engagements. Many of the company's counterparties operate on long decision cycles and assess durability as closely as technology. Capital continuity reduces perceived counterparty risk and supports deeper, longer-horizon agreements. In practice, that often determines whether activity remains at the pilot level or evolves into embedded infrastructure.

Third, extended visibility allows SMX to carry pilots through full validation and scale. Starting a pilot is easy. Converting it into a repeatable system is where many companies stall, often because capital pressure forces them to make premature decisions. Time aligned with execution changes that outcome.

Why Capital Has Continued to Show Up

This amendment doesn't stand alone. Since 2023, SMX has repeatedly demonstrated an ability to secure capital as its strategy has progressed. In today's market, that kind of consistency rarely appears without execution progress that capital can assess directly.

That recognition exists because stakeholders increasingly understand what SMX is actually building.

The SMX platform isn't a feature layered on top of existing workflows. It's verification infrastructure designed to operate across physical materials, regulatory regimes, and global supply chains. Systems built at that level don't scale in straight lines, and they don't move on a single schedule. They advance through coordination, integration, and validation across counterparties operating on very different clocks.

Infrastructure Moves on Multiple Timelines

This reality is already visible in SMX's engagement footprint. The company is active across institutional, industrial, and regulatory channels, including collaborations involving A*STAR, materials and textiles traceability initiatives such as TruCotton, trade and commodities frameworks connected to DMCC, and sensing and verification work alongside Redwave, among others.

These engagements differ in geography and application, but they share a common requirement: time. Time to integrate properly. Time to validate at scale. Time to mature into embedded systems. Extending the runway aligns capital availability with that operational reality instead of working against it.

Why This Is a Time Story, Not a Dilution Story

As SMX moves forward, the coming period is less about exploration and more about conversion. Engagement turning into deployment. Pilots evolving into repeatable infrastructure. This is the phase where many companies lose momentum, not because demand fades, but because time runs out.

By extending capital visibility into 2028, SMX has materially reduced that risk. Capital availability is now aligned with the platform's architectural complexity, reducing friction across planning, deployment, and scale. Decisions can follow readiness instead of deadlines. Growth can follow structure instead of stress.

That's why this development shouldn't be read as a dilution story, but rather as an increase in "time" that lets things happen without 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.

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SOURCE: SMX (Security Matters) Public Limited