MACKGOLD | OBSIDIAN CIRCLE
Department of Strategic Geopolitics and Natural Resources
HUMAN-MADE GOLD
From the Alchemists’ Dream to CERN: When Physical Possibility Could Transform the Global Economy and Destroy the Scarcity Premium
Publication Date: November 15, 2026
Status: Scientific, Analytical, and Strategic Research
Introduction.
When the Impossible Became Possible
For many centuries, humanity sought to achieve one of the most mysterious transformations of matter.
To turn an ordinary metal into gold.
Alchemists searched for the philosopher’s stone.
Researchers attempted to discover unknown properties of matter.
Rulers imagined the possibility of creating wealth without developing mineral deposits or extracting precious metals.
Yet the nature of gold remained poorly understood until science discovered the internal structure of the atom.
Today, the situation has fundamentally changed.
Modern nuclear physics has demonstrated that gold can be produced through the artificial transmutation of other chemical elements.
Not an imitation of gold.
Not a coating of precious metal.
Not a substance that merely resembles gold in its external characteristics.
We are speaking of genuine atomic nuclei of the chemical element with atomic number 79.
In May 2025, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, CERN, announced the results of the ALICE experiment at the Large Hadron Collider.
Researchers quantitatively investigated nuclear processes in which lead is transformed into other elements, including gold.
However, this achievement reveals a fundamental paradox.
Humanity has already learned how to create gold nuclei artificially.
Yet it does not possess a technology capable of producing stable metallic gold on an industrial scale at an economically competitive cost.
Between these two realities lies an enormous gap defined by the laws of nuclear physics, energy requirements, engineering limitations, and economics.
Nevertheless, a question arises that extends far beyond the CERN experiment.
What will happen to the global economy if humanity one day learns to create as much gold as it wishes?
Will the metal retain its historical value?
Will it remain a symbol of scarcity?
Or will humanity face a situation in which gold remains gold in the physical sense but ceases to be an exceptional means of accumulating wealth?
To answer these questions, it is first necessary to establish what modern science has already demonstrated and what remains within the realm of technological speculation.
1. What Makes Gold Gold
A chemical element is defined by the number of protons in its atomic nucleus.
Gold has atomic number 79.
This means that the nucleus of every gold isotope contains exactly 79 protons.
Mercury contains 80 protons.
Lead contains 82 protons.
Platinum contains 78 protons.
The differences between these elements are determined neither by the origin of the substance, nor by its appearance, nor by the method through which it was produced.
They are determined by the electric charge of the atomic nucleus.
If a nuclear process transforms a nucleus containing 82 protons into one containing 79 protons, the chemical element changes.
Lead becomes gold.
However, the number of neutrons also matters.
It determines the specific isotope of an element and influences the stability of its nucleus.
Stable natural gold consists of the isotope gold-197.
Its nucleus contains 79 protons and 118 neutrons.
Consequently, producing ordinary stable gold requires more than obtaining an arbitrary nucleus containing 79 protons.
It is necessary to ensure the formation of the appropriate stable isotope, preserve it, and subsequently obtain the substance in metallic form.
This is precisely where the fundamental distinction emerges between artificially creating a chemical element and industrially producing a precious metal.
2. Why Alchemy Could Not Solve This Problem
Alchemy developed long before the discovery of the atomic nucleus.
Its methods included heating, melting, mixing, dissolving, precipitation, and various chemical transformations.
However, ordinary chemical reactions primarily alter electronic structures and chemical bonds.
They do not change the number of protons in an atomic nucleus.
Therefore, transforming lead into gold through chemical methods is impossible.
Changing one chemical element into another requires a nuclear process.
This does not mean that historical alchemy was meaningless.
Certain alchemical practices contributed to the development of laboratory techniques, chemical analysis, and experimental methods.
But the fundamental challenge of transforming one chemical element into another required the discovery of physical processes inaccessible to ordinary chemistry.
When science established the structure of the atomic nucleus, the ancient dream of the alchemists acquired a new explanation.
The problem was no longer the search for an unknown chemical reagent.
It became a challenge of controlling nuclear reactions.
3. The First Claims.
1924
In 1924, German researcher Adolf Miethe reported the alleged production of gold from mercury through the application of an electrical discharge.
This claim attracted considerable interest within the scientific community.
In August 1924, the journal Nature published an article entitled “The Reported
Transmutation of Mercury into Gold.”
However, the claim was treated with caution.
The primary problem was the absence of convincing experimental evidence demonstrating that the detected gold had genuinely originated from a transformation of atomic nuclei.
When working with extremely small quantities of matter, the possibility of sample contamination is particularly important.
Even minute traces of gold can lead to an erroneous conclusion that transmutation has occurred.
Furthermore, the proposed physical mechanism required an explanation consistent with the already established laws of atomic physics.
In 1926, Nature continued its discussion of the issue in an article entitled “The Present
Position of the Transmutation Controversy.”
The historical importance of these works does not lie in their definitive confirmation of artificial gold production.
They demonstrate the transition from alchemical concepts to the scientific formulation of the problem.
Science requires more than a claim of success.
It requires a reproducible experiment, an established physical mechanism, and convincing evidence of the origin of the substance obtained.
4. 1941.
Artificial Gold Already Exists
A fundamental breakthrough occurred with the development of experimental nuclear physics.
On October 1, 1941, the journal Physical Review published a study by R. Sherr, K. T.
Bainbridge, and H. H. Anderson entitled “Transmutation of Mercury by Fast
Neutrons.”
The researchers investigated the effects of fast neutrons on mercury.
As a result of nuclear reactions, radioactive isotopes of gold were detected, including gold-198 and gold-199.
The study also described other products of nuclear transformations.
This represented a fundamentally different result from earlier claims concerning the chemical transformation of metals.
It involved products of nuclear reactions identified through experimental methods.
Thus, the artificial production of radioactive gold isotopes had been convincingly demonstrated long before the construction of the Large Hadron Collider.
The 1941 study is among the earliest reliably documented investigations of this kind.
Consequently, the assertion that CERN created gold for the first time in human history in 2025 is historically incorrect.
CERN’s achievement lay elsewhere.
Researchers obtained new quantitative information about nuclear transformations at extremely high energies and through a particular mechanism of interaction between heavy nuclei.
5. CERN 2025.
When Lead Becomes Gold
On May 7, 2025, the ALICE Collaboration published a study in Physical Review C entitled:
“Proton emission in ultraperipheral Pb-Pb collisions at √sNN = 5.02 TeV.”
On May 8, CERN presented the research findings.
The experiment was conducted at the Large Hadron Collider using high-energy beams of lead nuclei.
The starting material was lead-208.
The nucleus of this isotope contains 82 protons and 126 neutrons.
Under certain nuclear interactions, it can lose some of its protons and neutrons.
If the number of protons decreases from 82 to 79, a gold nucleus is formed.
The loss of one proton produces thallium.
The loss of two protons produces mercury.
The loss of three protons produces gold.
Meanwhile, the number of neutrons lost determines which isotope of the new element is formed.
However, the most interesting aspect of the experiment is that a direct collision between two nuclei is not required for these processes.
It is sufficient for them to pass extremely close to one another.
6. A Collision Without Contact
Lead nuclei in the Large Hadron Collider travel at speeds approaching the speed of light.
They possess powerful electromagnetic fields.
When two nuclei pass close to one another without their nuclear volumes overlapping, ultraperipheral interactions occur.
Under these conditions, there is no conventional direct nuclear collision.
However, the electromagnetic field of one nucleus can affect the other.
In the quantum-physical description, these processes are understood through the exchange of photons.
The absorption of a photon can excite a nucleus.
As a result of this excitation, the nucleus may emit neutrons and protons.
This process is called electromagnetic dissociation.
It is the mechanism underlying the transformations of lead into other elements investigated by ALICE.
Special calorimeters designed to measure protons and neutrons emitted in the direction of the particle beams were used to register the emitted particles.
Researchers measured the effective cross sections of channels involving the emission of zero, one, two, or three protons accompanied by neutrons.
Further interpretation of the results was performed using nuclear-physics models, including RELDIS.
An important scientific detail is that the resulting secondary gold nuclei were not directly identified as individual gold atoms in the ALICE detector.
Their production was quantitatively estimated using the measured reaction channels and the corresponding physical model.
This distinction is essential for an accurate understanding of the research findings.
7. How a Gold Nucleus Is Formed
Consider one possible transformation channel.
The original lead-208 nucleus contains 82 protons and 126 neutrons.
Suppose that, following electromagnetic excitation, it loses three protons and two neutrons.
The number of protons decreases to 79.
The number of neutrons decreases to 124.
The total number of nucleons becomes 203.
As a result, a gold-203 nucleus is formed.
A simplified representation of the change in nuclear composition is:
²⁰⁸Pb → ²⁰³Au + 3p + 2n
Here, p represents a proton, while n represents a neutron.
This expression reflects the conservation of nucleon number and electric charge. It does not constitute a complete description of the physical reaction, since the actual process requires electromagnetic excitation and compliance with the conservation laws of energy and momentum.
The resulting nucleus genuinely belongs to the chemical element gold.
However, gold-203 is not a stable isotope.
Its half-life is approximately 60 seconds.
It undergoes radioactive beta decay, transforming into mercury-203.
Consequently, the existence of a gold nucleus does not necessarily imply the existence of durable metallic gold.
This distinction is decisive when evaluating the industrial potential of nuclear transmutation.
8. Real Gold and Stable Gold
Stable natural gold consists almost entirely of the isotope gold-197.
Each nucleus of this isotope contains 79 protons and 118 neutrons.
Any isotope containing 79 protons belongs to the chemical element gold.
However, different isotopes may vary considerably in their nuclear stability.
Some are radioactive.
They transform into other nuclei over time.
Others exist for relatively long periods but are still not stable.
Producing ordinary, long-lasting gold requires the production of the stable isotope gold-197.
But even this is insufficient.
It is necessary to obtain a large number of atoms, preserve them, separate them from other reaction products, ensure radiation safety, and form a metal suitable for practical use.
In other words, creating a gold nucleus, obtaining a stable isotope, and manufacturing a gold bar represent three distinct technological challenges.
The first has already been solved by experimental nuclear physics.
The second is physically possible and does not represent a process unknown to nature.
The third has not yet been solved in the form of economically competitive industrial production through artificial transmutation.
9. 89,000 Nuclei per Second.
The Scale of the Scientific Achievement
According to CERN’s announcement of May 8, 2025, the rate of gold-nucleus production under the conditions of the ALICE experiment could reach approximately 89,000 nuclei per second.
At first glance, this figure appears significant.
However, an atomic nucleus has an extremely small mass.
Researchers estimated that during LHC Run 2, from 2015 to 2018, approximately 86 billion gold nuclei were produced across all four major interaction points.
Their combined mass was approximately 29 picograms.
Or:
0.000000000029 grams.
One gram contains one trillion picograms.
Therefore, 29 picograms is approximately 34.5 billion times less than one gram.
Consider an additional theoretical calculation.
If an installation continuously produces 89,000 gold nuclei per second, assuming an average mass of approximately 197 atomic mass units per nucleus, producing one gram would require approximately 1.1 billion years.
This is purely a mathematical extrapolation.
It does not account for the destruction or loss of the nuclei produced, accelerator shutdown periods, or the technical impossibility of extracting the product.
It is not a forecast of LHC operations.
It illustrates the quantitative gulf between creating individual atomic nuclei and producing a macroscopic quantity of matter.
One gram of gold is a small quantity for the metallurgical industry.
But from the perspective of existing transmutation experiments, it represents an enormous number of atomic nuclei.
Thus, CERN’s scientific achievement cannot be evaluated by the amount of metal produced.
Its significance lies in the experimental investigation of fundamental processes that change atomic nuclei.
10. Why the Gold Produced Cannot Be Collected
The gold nuclei formed through the investigated processes retain extremely high kinetic energy.
After a nucleus changes its composition, the relationship between its electric charge and momentum changes.
Consequently, the secondary nuclei no longer follow precisely the trajectory of the original lead beam.
They gradually deviate from the intended orbit.
These nuclei subsequently interact with components of the accelerator facility, including collimators and the walls of the vacuum system.
During such interactions, they may break apart into individual nucleons and other secondary products.
Thus, the experiment does not produce gold powder, molten metal, or a gold bar ready for extraction.
It investigates secondary nuclei that exist only briefly.
Industrial production would require a fundamentally different system capable of preserving, slowing, collecting, separating, and purifying the resulting material.
The existence of a transmutation process does not imply the existence of a technology for extracting its product.
This is one of the principal engineering limitations.
11. What CERN Actually Discovered
The scientific novelty of the 2025 results must be defined without exaggeration.
CERN did not demonstrate for the first time that gold could be created artificially.
Such nuclear transformations had been known much earlier.
ALICE performed new measurements of proton and neutron emission during the electromagnetic dissociation of lead-208 in ultraperipheral interactions at the LHC.
The resulting data made it possible to investigate reaction channels associated with the formation of secondary nuclei of different elements.
In particular, the measured channel involving the emission of three protons corresponds to a decrease in lead’s atomic number from 82 to 79.
In interpreting the results, researchers identified both agreement between certain experimental measurements and the RELDIS model, and discrepancies in other channels.
These discrepancies are scientifically interesting in their own right.
They allow nuclear-reaction models to be refined.
Furthermore, the research has direct relevance to accelerator physics.
Changes in nuclear composition affect the stability of heavy-ion beams.
Secondary nuclei may leave their intended orbit and cause particle losses.
Consequently, the ALICE results are useful not only for studying nuclear transmutation but also for improving the operation of modern and future accelerators.
This is where their confirmed scientific value lies.
12. Gold Born Before the Earth
The previous MACKGOLD | OBSIDIAN CIRCLE study, “The Cosmic Origin of Gold,” examined the origin of heavy elements in the universe.
The gold present on Earth today originated before the formation of our planet.
Its atomic nuclei were formed through astrophysical processes occurring in earlier generations of cosmic objects.
One of the most important mechanisms for the formation of heavy elements is rapid neutron capture, known as the r-process.
The conditions required for this process arise during certain extreme astrophysical events.
Among the most extensively studied sources are mergers of neutron stars.
Additional research indicates a possible role for powerful magnetar flares.
On April 29, 2025, NASA presented findings from a study based on the analysis of archival astronomical observations and simulations of heavy-element formation associated with magnetar activity.
However, the relative contributions of different astrophysical sources to the formation of gold have not yet been conclusively established.
It is necessary to distinguish the cosmic origin of gold from the mechanism investigated at CERN.
Under astrophysical conditions, heavy elements can form through successive neutron capture and subsequent nuclear transformations.
The ALICE experiments examine a different pathway.
An already existing heavy lead nucleus loses some of its constituent nucleons.
In both cases, the result may be a nucleus of the chemical element gold.
Thus, natural and artificial origins do not change the fundamental identity of the element.
Gold remains gold regardless of whether its nucleus was formed during an astrophysical event or through a human-controlled nuclear process.
13. Can Artificial Gold Differ from Natural Gold?
Suppose a future technology makes it possible to produce stable gold-197.
Would it be real gold?
Yes.
The nucleus of artificially produced gold-197 would contain the same 79 protons and 118 neutrons as the nucleus of natural gold-197.
Under identical electronic conditions, the atoms would possess the same fundamental chemical properties.
If a sufficient number of these atoms were assembled into a metallic structure, the result would be genuine gold.
Its artificial origin would not make the metal counterfeit.
Differences could exist in impurities, microstructure, manufacturing conditions, and documented material provenance.
However, the chemical element and its stable isotope would remain identical.
This means that gold does not possess absolute physical scarcity in the sense that creating new atoms is impossible.
Its current scarcity is linked to the limited supply available under existing technological and economic conditions.
This distinction must be taken into account when analyzing the future of the global gold market.
14. From the Atom to Industrial Production
Demonstrating an individual nuclear reaction is not sufficient to develop an industrial technology.
A complex set of interconnected challenges must be resolved.
First, it is necessary to ensure the production of stable gold-197 with high selectivity.
Then sufficient productivity must be achieved.
The formation of undesirable radioactive isotopes must be reduced.
A system must be developed for extracting and separating reaction products.
Radiation and technical safety must be ensured.
Energy and resource costs per unit of metal produced must be reduced.
Continuous equipment operation must be organized.
Finally, production costs must reach a level that allows competition with the mining, processing, and refining of natural gold.
Each of these challenges requires a separate engineering solution.
Taken together, they are far more complex than the mere fact of nuclear transmutation.
Modern accelerators were designed to investigate the fundamental properties of matter.
They are not industrial facilities for producing precious metals.
Therefore, the CERN results cannot be interpreted as evidence of the imminent emergence of commercially produced artificial gold.
Such an interpretation is inconsistent with the actual research findings.
15. Energy as the New Boundary of Scarcity
At present, new gold supply is generated primarily through the mining of natural deposits and the recycling of previously extracted metal.
Both processes work with already existing atoms.
Nuclear transmutation is fundamentally different.
It requires changing the composition of the atomic nucleus.
This demands specific nuclear reactions, appropriate energy conditions, and sophisticated technological infrastructure.
Consequently, if industrial transmutation ever becomes practically feasible, the economic constraints governing gold production may change.
Instead of depending primarily on geological deposits, production would become dependent on available energy, nuclear technologies, production capacity, and engineering efficiency.
However, an erroneous conclusion must be avoided.
Access to cheap energy does not automatically guarantee cheap gold.
Even with low electricity costs, limitations may remain related to nuclear-reaction probabilities, facility productivity, equipment lifespan, raw-material costs, radiation shielding, and product extraction.
Therefore, the mass production of artificial gold would require more than advances in energy technology.
It would require a technological system capable of transforming a nuclear reaction into an efficient industrial process.
The laws of physics permit transmutation.
But they do not guarantee its commercial efficiency.
16. The World’s Gold Stock. What Is Truly Limited?
To assess the future market, it is necessary to consider not only natural deposits but also the metal already accumulated by humanity.
According to the World Gold Council, the total above-ground stock of gold at the end of 2025 was estimated at approximately 219,891 tonnes.
By the end of the second quarter of 2026, the corresponding estimate had reached approximately 222,600 tonnes.
This gold has already been mined and largely continues to exist in the form of jewelry, investment bars, coins, central-bank reserves, and other physical holdings.
Unlike many consumable raw materials, gold is practically not destroyed through ordinary use.
It can be remelted, refined, and repeatedly returned to circulation.
Therefore, the global gold market cannot be analyzed solely on the basis of annual mine production.
According to the World Gold Council, mine production in 2025 amounted to approximately 3,672 tonnes.
Another approximately 1,404 tonnes came from recycling.
Total supply, including other components, was estimated at approximately 5,002 tonnes.
These figures reveal an important characteristic of the gold market.
Annual production represents a relatively small proportion of the world’s already accumulated gold stock.
However, the price of gold depends on more than the physical quantity of the metal. It is also determined by the behavior of those who own existing stocks.
If investors, governments, and other market participants prefer to retain their gold, a substantial proportion of accumulated metal remains outside current market supply.
If their preferences change, some previously accumulated gold may return to the market.
Consequently, the economic scarcity of gold depends simultaneously on geology, technology, and human decisions.
This factor is of fundamental importance when considering artificial transmutation.
17. Can Humanity Produce Gold by the Tonne?
From the perspective of fundamental physics, there is no general prohibition against artificially producing large quantities of stable gold nuclei.
However, the absence of a physical prohibition does not mean that a practically feasible production method exists.
Between the experimental creation of individual nuclei and the production of tonnes of metallic gold lies the need to increase productivity enormously, redesign the technological architecture, and achieve economic efficiency.
The scale of this difference becomes particularly clear when compared with CERN’s results.
During LHC Run 2, approximately 29 picograms of gold were produced across all four main interaction points.
One tonne equals one million grams.
That is approximately 3.45 × 10¹⁶ quantities, each equivalent in mass to 29 picograms.
Consequently, moving toward tonne-scale production would require more than simply increasing the number of existing facilities.
A fundamentally new level of technological efficiency would be necessary.
Future nuclear technologies may open the way to more productive processes.
Alternatively, economic and physical-engineering limitations may prove so substantial that industrial gold transmutation never becomes competitive.
Modern science cannot reliably determine when such a technology might appear.
Nor does it provide grounds for claiming that such a technology will inevitably be developed.
Therefore, predictions about the imminent industrial production of artificial gold should be regarded as speculative until the relevant production characteristics and economic calculations have been demonstrated.
18. When Gold Ceases to Be Scarce
For thousands of years, gold has occupied a special position in human civilization.
Its value has been associated not only with its physical properties but also with limited availability, durability, recognizability, and historically established trust.
Today, it is necessary to ask a question that previously belonged primarily to the realm of philosophical speculation.
What will happen if humanity learns to create stable gold in quantities limited mainly by industrial production capacity?
Suppose such a technology has been developed.
It is safe.
It is scalable.
It can produce high-purity gold-197.
Its production cost is significantly lower than the cost of mining natural gold.
At the same time, production capacity can be expanded rapidly.
Under such circumstances, the economic structure of the global gold market would begin to change.
A metal whose availability has depended for thousands of years on natural deposits, accumulated stocks, and recycling would acquire an additional source of supply.
Gold could potentially be produced on industrial demand.
But the loss of scarcity does not imply the loss of usefulness.
Gold would retain its electrical conductivity, chemical stability, corrosion resistance, and other properties that support its practical applications.
The physical nature of the substance would not change.
What would change is the economic significance of its limited supply.
Today, gold is valued not only for its usefulness in industry and jewelry manufacturing.
A substantial portion of demand is associated with its function as an investment asset, a store of value, and a component of official reserves.
If expectations of long-term supply scarcity disappear, some of the foundations supporting gold’s high investment valuation may weaken.
This could change the behavior of private investors, international financial institutions, and central banks.
However, such a process would not necessarily be rapid.
Historical trust, custody institutions, market liquidity, and reserve-management practices may persist even after new technologies emerge.
Consequently, the disappearance of geologically determined scarcity would not automatically terminate gold’s monetary and investment roles.
It would create the conditions for their reassessment.
19. Could Gold One Day Become Worthless?
This is the most radical question addressed in the study.
The answer requires a fundamental distinction between the intrinsic economic value of the metal and its valuation as a scarce investment asset.
Suppose artificial gold becomes abundant and inexpensive.
Its production is no longer constrained by a limited number of mineral deposits.
Global supply can expand rapidly in response to demand.
Under such circumstances, the premium associated with expectations of long-term scarcity could decline substantially.
Gold might cease to be perceived as an exceptional material whose limited availability, by itself, guarantees a high value.
However, this does not mean that its market price would necessarily fall to zero. Gold possesses useful physical and chemical properties.
It is used in the electronics industry, specialized technological processes, coating production, jewelry manufacturing, and other applications.
Furthermore, producing and processing a physical product requires resources.
Even inexpensive artificial production would involve costs associated with equipment, energy, raw materials, maintenance, purification, and delivery.
Therefore, a more reasonable scenario is one in which gold loses a substantial portion of its investment premium, while its price becomes determined primarily by utility, industrial demand, and production costs.
In that case, gold would not cease to be a chemical element with unique properties.
But it could cease to be an economically exceptional material.
Another factor must also be considered.
Even technically inexpensive production could be restricted by patents, monopoly control, government policy, equipment availability, and international regulation.
Consequently, cheap technology does not guarantee a low market price if supply is artificially restricted.
For the scarcity premium to disappear entirely, humanity must do more than learn how to produce gold on a massive scale.
Global market participants must also become confident in the sustained long-term availability of large additional volumes of the metal.
Such a shift in expectations could have a substantial impact on prices.
However, the magnitude of any potential decline cannot currently be forecast with sufficient quantitative reliability.
Gold may lose its economic exceptionalism without losing its physical properties.
And it is precisely this possibility that makes the future of gold so significant for the global economy.
20. Three Scenarios for the Future of Gold
The development of nuclear technologies allows three fundamentally different scenarios to be formulated.
Scenario One. Gold Remains a Naturally Scarce Asset
Nuclear transmutation continues to be used in scientific research.
Productivity remains negligible.
The production cost of artificial gold substantially exceeds the market price of natural gold.
The global market continues to depend on geological mining, recycling, existing stocks, and investment demand.
Under this scenario, artificial gold has no significant impact on global prices.
This is the situation corresponding to currently known technologies.
Scenario Two. Competitive Artificial Production Emerges
A new technology is developed that makes it possible to produce stable gold in industrial quantities.
Production costs gradually approach those of traditional mining or fall below them.
An additional source of supply appears in the global market.
Initially, its market share may be small.
However, as production develops, its share could increase.
In this case, natural deposits would no longer be the only principal source of newly produced gold.
International prices would begin to reflect the new structure of future supply.
Existing mining companies could face changes in the profitability of individual deposits.
However, traditional mining would not necessarily disappear.
Its competitiveness would depend on production costs and the characteristics of the new technology.
Scenario Three. Gold Loses a Substantial Portion of Its Scarcity Premium Stable gold production becomes large-scale, accessible, and relatively inexpensive.
Industrial production capacity can expand rapidly.
The market ceases to regard the long-term availability of gold as primarily constrained by geology.
Under these circumstances, investment demand based on expectations of scarcity could decline significantly.
Gold would retain its physical properties as a metal.
However, its economic position could move closer to that of an ordinary industrial commodity with high technological utility.
This scenario is hypothetical.
Neither the CERN results nor the other studies examined demonstrate that humanity is approaching its realization.
Nevertheless, it is not physically excluded and deserves consideration in long-term strategic analysis.
21. The Geopolitical Consequences of Industrial Transmutation
The emergence of mass-scale artificial gold production could transform more than the precious-metals market.
It could influence relations between states, the international distribution of capital, and the strategic role of natural resources.
Today, gold is mined in various regions of the world.
Its production is linked to geological conditions, the availability of deposits, investment in the mining industry, and national regulation.
Some countries derive substantial economic benefits from gold mining and exports.
Others hold large official gold reserves.
Industrial transmutation could alter the existing distribution of advantages.
If the new method of gold production becomes available primarily to technologically advanced countries, strategic importance may shift away from mineral deposits toward nuclear infrastructure, energy systems, scientific expertise, and production equipment.
A fundamentally new form of dependency would emerge.
A country without substantial natural gold reserves could potentially become a gold producer.
Conversely, a country with large deposits could face a decline in the economic significance of some of its natural resources.
However, this transition would not necessarily result in a free market for artificial gold.
The technologies could be controlled by a limited number of companies or governments.
Their distribution could depend on export controls, international treaties, licensing, and national nuclear-safety requirements.
Thus, the geological scarcity of gold could, under certain conditions, be replaced by technological and institutional restrictions on its production.
This means that future competition could potentially shift from control over deposits to control over technologies.
But such a transition would be possible only if a genuinely competitive industrial process emerged.
Without such a process, the geopolitical consequences remain a matter of scenario analysis rather than an established forecast.
22. Could the Market Devalue Gold Before Humanity Learns to Produce It?
Global financial markets respond not only to current physical supply volumes.
They also respond to expectations about future developments.
Therefore, a potentially important scientific discovery may influence the price of an asset even before an industrial product becomes available.
Suppose researchers present a convincingly demonstrated technology for the mass production of stable gold.
It has undergone independent testing.
Its production costs have been verified.
The ability to expand production capacity many times over has been demonstrated. Yet actual output volumes remain small.
Even under these circumstances, investors may begin reassessing their assumptions about the long-term scarcity of gold.
Changes in expectations could influence market prices before substantial quantities of artificial gold enter circulation.
However, the opposite reaction is also possible.
If the new technology raises doubts, fails to demonstrate verified production costs, or encounters fundamental engineering limitations, market participants may attach little importance to it.
Thus, the impact of a scientific discovery depends on more than the physical possibility of producing gold.
It depends on the credibility of the technological results and the market’s confidence in the prospects for industrial implementation.
This is a crucial distinction.
Changing the fundamental structure of supply requires actual production.
Changing market expectations may sometimes require only convincing proof of a future production capability.
But convincing proof must not be confused with a public announcement, a technological presentation, or a theoretical model.
The developments most capable of influencing the global market are reproducible results, verified engineering parameters, and economically justified prospects for scaling production.
23. What Will Become the Main Constraint of the Future?
If industrial nuclear transmutation ever achieves economic competitiveness, humanity will face a new understanding of resource constraints.
Today, gold scarcity is determined primarily by the combination of natural reserves, mining capacity, recycling, and the behavior of owners of already existing metal.
In a hypothetical economy of mass transmutation, supply would additionally depend on production infrastructure.
However, this would not mean the disappearance of scarcity altogether.
Scarcity would take a different form.
The costs of energy, equipment, raw materials, nuclear reactions, safety systems, and the production of the final material would become important.
Consequently, gold production could shift from a predominantly geologically constrained process to a technologically constrained one.
At the same time, the technology itself could remain expensive, complex, and limited.
This is precisely why it cannot be claimed that the demonstrated physical possibility of transmutation will inevitably lead to cheap gold.
The history of science contains numerous examples of processes that are physically possible but economically inefficient.
Scientific knowledge defines the boundaries of what is possible.
Engineering defines the boundaries of what is achievable.
Economics defines the boundaries of what is competitive.
Industrial artificial gold production requires all three conditions to be satisfied simultaneously.
24. When Scarcity Ceases to Be Absolute
The concept of scarcity requires a precise definition.
Gold is not scarce because creating new nuclei of this element is impossible.
Nuclear physics has demonstrated the opposite.
Gold is economically scarce because its available supply is determined by existing stocks, natural mining, recycling, and technology.
The scarcity of natural deposits is a geological fact.
But economic scarcity is not an immutable physical law.
It depends on the means available to humanity for obtaining and using a substance.
This is a fundamental distinction.
If stable gold production one day becomes available on a scale comparable to the needs of the global market, the importance of geological scarcity will diminish.
However, geological scarcity will not disappear as the factual limitation of the number of mineral deposits.
What will change is its economic significance.
Thus, nuclear transmutation does not disprove the concept of gold’s natural scarcity.
It demonstrates that natural scarcity and economic scarcity are not entirely identical concepts.
This conclusion has implications far beyond the precious-metals market.
It concerns the broader relationship between natural resources, scientific progress, and the technological capabilities of civilization.
25. Humanity Is Changing the Boundaries of the Possible
The history of scientific development demonstrates that decades may pass between the discovery of a physical principle and its industrial application.
Sometimes considerably longer.
Moreover, not every scientific discovery becomes the foundation of a commercially efficient technology.
Some processes remain subjects of fundamental research.
Others find practical application only after the emergence of new materials, energy sources, and engineering solutions.
Still others may never achieve competitive production costs.
Today, the artificial production of gold belongs to the realm of demonstrated physical possibility.
However, the industrial production of artificial gold at a competitive cost is not an established technological reality.
This does not diminish the significance of the achievements of nuclear physics.
On the contrary.
It illustrates the boundary between understanding that matter can be transformed and humanity’s ability to use that possibility on an economically meaningful scale.
It is precisely at this boundary that fundamental physics meets industrial economics.
Conclusion.
The Final Frontier of Alchemy
For centuries, humanity sought to transform ordinary metal into gold.
Alchemists searched for an unknown substance that would make this possible.
Later, physicists discovered the atomic nucleus.
They established its structure.
They learned to change the number of protons and neutrons.
To produce radioactive isotopes.
To transform one chemical element into another.
In 1941, researchers were already experimentally producing radioactive gold isotopes through nuclear reactions.
In 2025, the ALICE Collaboration published new quantitative results concerning the transformation of lead nuclei during ultraperipheral interactions at the Large Hadron Collider.
Consequently, the ancient dream of the alchemists has ceased to be physically unattainable.
Human beings can create nuclei of genuine gold.
But a new challenge has emerged.
The question is no longer whether the laws of nature permit the transformation of one element into another.
They do.
The question is whether humanity can perform such transformations continuously, safely, on an industrial scale, and at a competitive cost.
Existing technologies do not allow artificial gold to be produced in this way in economically significant quantities.
Therefore, the CERN results do not demonstrate the emergence of a new industrial source of precious metal.
They demonstrate humanity’s ability to experimentally investigate and utilize processes that alter the very nuclear identity of matter.
Yet an even more important question emerges in the long term.
What will happen if gold production ceases to depend primarily on natural deposits?
Perhaps humanity will develop technologies capable of producing stable gold on a massive scale.
Perhaps fundamental engineering and economic limitations will prevent such production from ever becoming competitive.
Modern science does not provide sufficient grounds to assert either outcome with certainty.
But if mass transmutation becomes reality, its consequences will extend far beyond metallurgy.
The structure of global gold supply may change.
The profitability of the mining industry may change.
The geopolitical significance of natural deposits may change.
The investment valuation of gold and its perception as a store of value may change.
And most importantly, gold may lose a substantial portion of its historical scarcity premium without losing a single one of its fundamental physical properties.
This would represent an extraordinary economic transformation.
The gold atom would remain the same.
Its nucleus would still contain 79 protons.
The metal would retain its chemical stability, electrical conductivity, and technological usefulness.
But humanity’s willingness to pay its former price could change radically.
Therefore, the central question of the future is not whether gold will remain genuine gold.
It will.
The question is whether it will remain an economically exceptional material.
Science has already demonstrated that human beings can create gold nuclei.
Engineering has not yet demonstrated that humanity can mass-produce stable gold at a competitive cost.
And economics does not yet know what gold will be worth in a world where scarcity ceases to be the defining constraint on its supply.
This is where the ancient dream of the alchemists ends and a new question for modern civilization begins.
Billions of years ago, gold was formed under extreme astrophysical conditions.
Much later, humanity learned to alter atomic nuclei independently and produce this element.
But an enormous technological distance still separates a single nucleus from industrial production.
If that distance is ever overcome, humanity may face not the disappearance of gold, but the disappearance of some of the economic foundations underlying its historical value.
The physical nature of gold may remain unchanged.
Its economic destiny does not have to remain the same.
Principal Scientific and Analytical Sources
ALICE Collaboration. Proton emission in ultraperipheral Pb-Pb collisions at √sNN =
5.02 TeV. Physical Review C, 111, 054906 (2025). DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevC.111.054906.
CERN. ALICE detects the conversion of lead into gold at the LHC. 8 May 2025. https://home.cern/alice–detects–conversion–lead–gold–lhc/
- Sherr, K. T. Bainbridge, H. H. Anderson. Transmutation of Mercury by Fast Neutrons. Physical Review, 60, 473 (1941). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRev.60.473.
The Reported Transmutation of Mercury into Gold. Nature, 114, 197–198 (1924).
DOI: 10.1038/114197a0.
The Present Position of the Transmutation Controversy. Nature, 117, 758–760 (1926).
DOI: 10.1038/117758a0.
NASA Science. Where Does Gold Come From? NASA Data Has Clues. 29 April 2025. https://science.nasa.gov/universe/stars/neutron–stars/magnetars/where–doesgold–come–from–nasa–data–has–clues/
World Gold Council. Gold Demand Trends: Q4 and Full Year 2025. Supply. 29 January 2026. https://www.gold.org/goldhub/research/gold–demand–trends/golddemand–trends–full–year–2025/supply
World Gold Council. You asked, we answered: Are we running out of gold? March 2026. https://www.gold.org/goldhub/gold–focus/2026/03/you–asked–we–answered–arewe–running–out–gold
World Gold Council. How Much Gold Has Been Mined? Data on the global aboveground gold stock as of the end of the second quarter of 2026. https://www.gold.org/goldhub/data/how–much–gold
National Center for Biotechnology Information, PubChem. Gold (Au), Element 79.
Isotopic characteristics of gold, including gold-203. https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/element/79
MACKGOLD | OBSIDIAN CIRCLE
Department of Strategic Geopolitics and Natural Resources
November 15, 2026