Rare minerals: the most strategic assets of the 21st century
Seventeen elements sit beneath every EV motor, wind turbine, and missile guidance system on Earth. Their scarcity is not geological — it is geopolitical. And that makes them one of the most compelling financial stories of the decade.
The IEA Critical Minerals Outlook 2025 confirmed that lithium demand rose nearly 30% in 2024 alone, while rare earth element demand grew 6–8%. Clean energy now drives 85% of total demand growth for battery metals — a structural trend locked in by climate legislation and EV adoption curves globally.
Price performance: rare earths vs. conventional assets
| Element | Price / kg | Return since 2020 | Key use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Terbium (Tb) | $4,028 | +503% | Phosphors, fuel cells, magnets |
| Dysprosium (Dy) | $930 | +169% | EV motors, wind turbines, defence |
| Neodymium (Nd) | $218 | +237% | Permanent magnets for EVs & wind |
| Germanium (Ge) | $5,670 | +38% YTD 2025 | Fibre optics, solar, semiconductors |
| Gold (benchmark) | — | ~+26% H1 2025 | Store of value |
Price data via Strategic Metals Invest and Trading Economics, April 2025.
The China chokehold — and why it matters now
According to the IEA, China leads refining for 19 of 20 key strategic minerals, averaging 70% global market share. In April 2025, Beijing imposed export controls on seven heavy rare earths including dysprosium and terbium — triggering a temporary shutdown of Ford's Chicago factory and forcing automakers across the US and Europe to scramble for supply.
The supply gap is structural: mine development takes 10–20 years, and IEA modelling shows announced projects meeting only 50% of lithium and 70% of copper needs by 2035. Total capital required across critical minerals to 2040 approaches $590 billion. The US Department of Defense became the largest shareholder in MP Materials, which simultaneously signed a $500 million supply deal with Apple for recycled rare earth magnets.
A new market takes shape: tokenized minerals on-chain
The supply crisis has not gone unnoticed in the blockchain space. A wave of platforms is now racing to bring physical critical minerals onto public ledgers — and the infrastructure is becoming real. Metals.io, built by Trilitech — the London-based R&D hub behind the Tezos ecosystem — launched in April 2026 offering tokenized exposure to a basket of five strategic metals including hafnium, rhenium, indium, neodymium oxide, and praseodymium oxide. The platform runs on Tezos' smart-rollup technology, delivering sub-50ms transaction confirmations.
It follows Uranium.io, which launched in December 2024 on Etherlink — Tezos' EVM-compatible Layer 2 — backed by uranium stored at Cameco, one of the world's largest uranium producers, and regulated by UK crypto firm Archax. The minimum entry is $10. Tezos co-founder Arthur Breitman has been explicit about the ambition: "the periodic table is going to be our product roadmap," said Bem Elvidge, Head of Commercial Applications at Trilitech, at TezDev 2026 in Cannes. Breitman himself framed it simply: commodity traders understand supply and demand — and on-chain ownership is the next logical step.
On the derivatives side, Hyperliquid has emerged as a parallel venue, offering 24/7 perpetual contracts on commodities including gold and oil — filling the gaps where traditional exchanges go dark overnight. The approach differs from physical-backing platforms: Hyperliquid provides price exposure and hedging, while projects like Metals.io and Uranium.io aim to make the token a legally enforceable wrapper around the metal itself. Both models are attracting serious attention as the tokenized commodities market has grown to approximately $7 billion.
It is into this rapidly forming market that Elementum STO is entering. Structured as a Security Token Offering backed by physically allocated rare mineral reserves, Elementum STO is positioning itself alongside Metals.io and Uranium.io as part of a new generation of regulated, asset-backed on-chain commodity vehicles. Where Metals.io focuses on a basket of five metals via the Tezos ecosystem, Elementum STO's focus is specifically on the rare earth elements most directly exposed to the geopolitical supply squeeze — the same materials that triggered factory shutdowns and government stockpiling programs in 2025.
The project is currently in its early offering stage. For investors who followed the Uranium.io model — which reduced the uranium investment minimum from institutional levels to $10 — Elementum STO represents a similar structural argument applied to rare earths: an asset class with inelastic industrial demand, constrained supply, and historically opaque access, now being opened through tokenization. Details are available at the Elementum STO project page.
Further reading: crypto.news — From uranium to rare earths: Tezos' bid to tokenize the elements · CSIS analysis · USGS Mineral Summaries 2024 · European Parliament briefing.
