Post: Gold First, With Critical Minerals as Strategic Upside...

Why the critical minerals opportunity may materially expand RZOLV’s long-term addressable market

Gold remains the clearest commercial entry point for RZOLV. It is a large, well-understood market with established processing infrastructure, clear economics, and immediate relevance to miners seeking better recovery options for complex ores, concentrates, tailings, and other challenging feedstocks. The critical-minerals theme matters because it introduces a second, highly strategic market that is already large today and expected to grow materially over time.

Using a market-value lens, gold on its own is enormous. USGS estimated 2024 global gold mine production at 3,300 tonnes, and the World Gold Council reported an average 2024 LBMA gold price of US$2,386/oz, implying a mined-gold value of about US$253 billion. The World Gold Council also reported that 2024 gold demand value reached a record US$382 billion. That is why gold remains the most natural and defensible commercial foundation for the RZOLV story: even before any broader expansion into other metals, the primary market is already very large.

For RZOLV, that gold foundation matters because it provides an immediate and understandable commercial anchor. The core thesis begins with gold recovery from materials where conventional routes may be challenged by mineralogy, impurities, environmental constraints, or jurisdictional pressure for alternatives. In other words, gold is not the side story; it is the primary entry market.

Beyond gold, however, critical minerals represent a major adjacent opportunity. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that the combined market value of key energy-transition minerals — including copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite, and rare earth elements — is about US$325 billion today and could rise to US$770 billion by 2040 in its Net Zero Emissions scenario. That means the critical-minerals basket is already in the same broad commercial range as gold on many benchmark views, and it carries a stronger long-term growth profile.

What makes critical minerals especially important is that they are not simply another commodity segment. The U.S. Department of Energy frames them as central to building more secure and resilient domestic supply chains, and specifically highlights supply from primary and secondary sources, co-produced materials, and improved processing technologies. The IEA also reports that concentration in refining has increased, with the average market share of the top three refining nations for key energy minerals rising from around 82% in 2020 to 86% in 2024.

That strategic backdrop extends beyond energy policy into industrial and national security. The U.S. Department of Defense said in January 2025 that critical minerals are used in virtually every Defense Department system, from unmanned aerial systems and fighter jets to submarines. That helps explain why critical minerals now command policy attention well beyond the mining sector itself.

TAM comparison table

Market benchmark	Estimated value	Comment
Gold mine-output value (2024 implied)	~US$253B	Based on USGS 2024 global gold mine production of 3,300 tonnes and the World Gold Council’s US$2,386/oz 2024 average gold price.
Gold demand value (2024)	US$382B	World Gold Council full-year 2024 demand value benchmark.
Key critical minerals market value (current IEA benchmark)	US$325B	IEA estimate for copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite, and rare earth elements.
Key critical minerals market value (2040 NZE scenario)	US$770B	IEA projected value in the Net Zero Emissions scenario.

These figures are best understood as top-down market-value benchmarks, not a strict company-specific TAM for RZOLV’s reagent business. They are also not perfectly apples-to-apples: the gold figures compare annual mine-output value and end-demand value, while the IEA figures reflect the aggregate market value of a defined basket of key energy-transition minerals.

That broader backdrop matters for RZOLV because it creates a potentially larger second market beside gold. If RZOLV can demonstrate effective recovery of selected critical or strategic metals from complex ores, concentrates, residues, tailings, or unconventional materials, the company’s addressable opportunity may extend beyond a single-metal gold narrative into a broader hydrometallurgical platform story. That is an inference from the market and policy data, not a claim of current commercial outcome.

A further potential advantage — and one that is best presented as upside, not as the core opening claim — is that in suitable feedstocks, the same chemistry platform used to complex gold may also solubilize selected critical or strategic metals within the same overall processing circuit. Put carefully, this is not a claim that every critical mineral will always dissolve alongside gold, nor that every downstream recovery step would be the same. It is the narrower proposition that, where mineralogy and solution chemistry are favorable, one hydrometallurgical platform may help unlock multiple payable metals from the same tonne of material.

If validated through feed-specific testing, that could matter commercially in several ways. First, it could increase value per tonne processed by allowing the operator to recover gold while also creating a pathway to recover selected additional metals from the same feed. Second, it could reduce some degree of front-end process duplication, because the operator may not need wholly separate extraction chemistries to begin dissolving value from different metal classes. Third, it supports resource efficiency, which aligns well with DOE’s emphasis on primary and secondary sources, co-produced materials, and improved processing.

The strategic significance is equally important. In a market where concentration in refining has risen and where the Defense Department says critical minerals are embedded across virtually all major defense systems, a recovery platform that can potentially address both gold and selected critical minerals has value beyond simple metallurgy. It may help position projects as contributors to domestic or allied supply resilience, not just as standalone precious-metals operations.

For investors and industrial partners, that changes the narrative. Gold still provides the clearest commercial anchor, but critical minerals introduce a second layer of strategic upside. And the possibility of secondary co-recovery in favorable materials adds a third layer: the chance to improve economics by extracting more total value from the same feed. If that is demonstrated consistently, RZOLV may be viewed not merely as an alternative gold-recovery chemistry, but as a broader multi-metal hydrometallurgical platform. That is an inference, but it is a reasonable one given the size of the adjacent market, the projected growth profile, and the policy emphasis on domestic processing and secondary-resource recovery.

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Disclosure and Cautionary Statement

This article has been published by RZOLV Technologies Inc. as part of its corporate communications and investor relations activities and reflects the views and opinions of management as of the date of publication. It is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice, an offer to sell, or a solicitation to buy securities. Certain statements in this article may constitute forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws and are subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially. Readers should not place undue reliance on such statements. The Company’s officers, directors, and insiders may hold securities of RZOLV and therefore have a financial interest in the Company’s performance. Readers are encouraged to review RZOLV’s public disclosure documents available on SEDAR+ for a discussion of material risks and assumptions. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider has reviewed or approved the contents of this article.

Sources

Source	Organization	Used in article for
Mineral Commodity Summaries 2025 – Gold	U.S. Geological Survey	2024 global gold mine production of 3,300 tonnes and the production benchmark underlying the implied mined-gold value.
Gold Demand Trends: Full Year 2024	World Gold Council	2024 average LBMA gold price of US$2,386/oz and 2024 gold demand value of US$382 billion.
Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2024 – Executive Summary	International Energy Agency	The current US$325 billion market-value benchmark for key energy-transition minerals.
Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2024 – Outlook for Key Minerals	International Energy Agency	The US$770 billion by 2040 Net Zero Emissions scenario benchmark for key energy-transition minerals.
Critical Minerals and Materials Program	U.S. Department of Energy	DOE language on expanding supply from primary and secondary sources, co-produced materials, and improving processing efficiency.
Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2025 – Executive Summary	International Energy Agency	The rise in refining concentration from about 82% in 2020 to 86% in 2024 for the top three refining nations across key energy minerals.
Securing Critical Minerals Vital to National Security, Official Says	U.S. Department of Defense	Defense relevance of critical minerals, including the statement that they are used in virtually every Defense Department system.