Highlights

• Rare Earth Exchanges issues correction: AREC has no direct billion-dollar government commitment; the $1.4B deal involves spun-out subsidiary ReElement Technologies receiving $80M conditional DOD loan as part of Vulcan Elements partnership.
• ReElement's blockchain traceability partnership with SAGINT is a strategic response to defense procurement requirements, not a promotional distraction, allowing the company to focus on scaling refined critical mineral production.
• The publication maintains editorial independence while acknowledging the legitimate need for supply chain transparency in the national security-critical rare earth refining sector, emphasizing that physical production at scale remains the ultimate test.

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There are moments in journalism—especially in a sector as strategically vital and feverishly scrutinized as critical minerals—when the record must be corrected with both humility and discipline.

This is one of those moments. Our recent piece involving American Resources Corporation (NASDAQ: AREC) and a former subsidy ReElement Technologies, contained a material inaccuracy and an implication that mischaracterized the intent and context behind the company’s blockchain-based traceability partnership.

It is our responsibility to address directly, and to do so without compromising the independence that defines Rare Earth Exchanges.

What was said

According to the recent press release (opens in a new tab) involving ReElement Technologies, and SAGINT Inc:

“The strategic agreement will deploy blockchain-based tokenization to create verifiable digital warehouse receipts and traceable digital assets for refined critical and rare earth minerals produced by ReElement. The solution delivers end-to-end provenance from mine origin through refining, enables secure borderless financing options, and ensures full compliance with evolving U.S. regulatory requirements with complete transparency for commercial and defense customer product deliveries.” 

ReElement Technologies takes an investment position in the startup SAGINT, leading to the following claimed benefits:

• Immutable, real-time supply chain traceability
• Digitized warehouse receipts that reduce counterparty and geopolitical risk
• Streamlined access to compliant capital markets and new revenue streams
• Enhanced transparency for government, defense and infrastructure customers

Our piece noted that without true production at scale, a blockchain initiative risks becoming dilutionary and distracting. CEO Jensen counters that the market—and especially defense customers—now demands this capability as the broader supply chain scales, making early implementation not optional but essential from his point of view.

Correcting the Record: No Government Commitment, No Billion-Dollar Deal

In our prior reporting, we referenced a “billion-dollar commitment” in a manner that implied AREC had signed, received, or was party to such a government-backed arrangement.

Yes, there was a recent US$1.4 billion public–private partnership announced by Vulcan Elements with the U.S. government to build a fully domestic rare-earth magnet supply chain.

To be specific, we include a chart below based on the Vulcan Elements press release.  As part of this deal with Department of War’s Office of Strategic Capital (OSC) ReElement Technologies receives an US$80 million direct loan from the same OSC facility, matched by private investment.

According to the press release, the DOD will secure warrants in Vulcan Elements and ReElement Technologies. The Commerce Department will get $50 million of equity in Vulcan.

Vulcan Elements announced the $1.4 billion dollar deal involving the magnet producer and rare earth recycling refiner.  The breakdown:

Item	Amount
Government OSC Conditional Loans	$700m
CHIPS Incentive	$50m
Private Capital (Vulcan + ReElement match	$630m (approximate)
Total	$1.3b (rounded up to $1.4b)

According to a November 21 OSC press release, (opens in a new tab) the overall deal involves a $700 million conditional loan commitment to Vulcan Elements ($620M) and ReElement Technologies ($80M) to expand domestic production of NdFeB magnet materials, including rare earth separation, metallization, and magnet manufacturing.

The commitment—funded through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act with up to $100 billion in lending authority—is intended to close the U.S. magnet supply-chain gap and enable both companies to scale toward a combined output of up to 10,000 metric tons of NdFeB magnet material over the coming years.

The package also includes a non-binding Commerce Department letter of intent for $50 million in CHIPS Act incentives for equipment, plus equity warrants for the government.

Importantly, these are conditional commitments: funds are disbursed when both companies meet extensive financial, legal, and technical due diligence requirements, with the goal of securing national security-critical magnet capacity while protecting taxpayers.

AREC, the publicly traded company that still owns a percentage of ReElement Technologies, has never signed any such commitment, nor is it affiliated with that government program. That statement should not have appeared in our coverage, and we regret its inclusion.

For context, ReElement Technologies began as a subsidiary of AREC.

AREC incubated ReElement’s refining technology, funded its early development, and held the intellectual-property licenses that enabled ReElement to enter rare-earth and battery-metal refining. Over time, as ReElement’s critical-minerals business grew, it was spun out as a separate, independent company, but AREC retained a minority equity stake and strategic influence.

Corrections are the backbone of credible journalism. The industry is too complex, too volatile, and too consequential for anything less than surgical precision.

ReElement’s Blockchain Partnership: A Legitimate Response to Defense-Sector Demands

Our earlier article noted that while SAGINT’s interest in mine-to-magnet traceability is intellectually sound, such efforts risk becoming a diversion from the core mandate of mine-to-refining execution. Still, it’s essential that we also convey CEO Jensen’s perspective.

From his standpoint, traceability is no longer optional. It is a procurement requirement. Defense primes, aerospace manufacturers, EV OEMs, and magnet producers are demanding auditable chains of custody, down to feedstock origin, environmental metrics, and metallurgical data. ReElement chose not to build this system internally—a reasonable decision. Instead, they aligned with a partner recommended by a major investor who, according to Jensen, is injecting capital into the company. This context matters. It reflects execution focus, not distraction.

A Founder’s Rebuttal Worth Hearing

Mark Jensen, ReElement’s founder, challenged two of our prior assertions:

1. That the blockchain partnership was a promotional distraction, and
2. That the company was not sufficiently focused on producing refined product.

After reviewing the full context, the logic behind the deal:

• The partnership is strategic rather than promotional, designed to meet customer-mandated traceability requirements.
• Outsourcing traceability allows ReElement to focus on its core mission: scaling production of rare earth elements, and delivering the “refined metal molecules” that the U.S. industrial base increasingly lacks.
• The critique that AREC was somehow potentially compromising execution does not align, according to Jensen.

We maintain our right—and our responsibility—to scrutinize any company in this space. The rare earth and broader critical-minerals sector demands transparency, rigorous vetting, and constant monitoring.

It is an industry famous for promotional noise, driven by the relentless need to secure capital for an expensive and inherently risky business.

Our mission is to cut through that noise and accelerate the emergence of an ex-China supply chain. But scrutiny must be precise, and precision requires context. In this instance, our previous piece did not fully meet that standard.

Editorial Integrity: We Correct, but We Do Not Capitulate

This clarification does not signal a shift in Rare Earth Exchanges’ independent posture nor our commitment to hard questions.

Our mission remains: to keep every company, every policymaker and politician, and every investor narrative grounded in fact, not sentiment. All with the aim of driving more accessibility, transparency, and insight for investors in this space, which is critical for national security at this point.

We will continue to apply that same critical lens to all companies in this space—especially as the U.S. advances into magnet-metal refining, midstream processing, and domestic feedstock recovery. This field is saturated with hype, noise, and competing narratives; some hold up under scrutiny, others do not.

Today, we correct elements of the record and continue the work. And we stand behind Jensen’s broader effort. He was among the first guests on our podcast when this platform launched a year ago, and we respect the commitment he brings to building a real domestic supply chain, one imperative for national security.

Conclusion

After deeper review, the blockchain traceability platform is both technologically realistic and commercially viable—squarely aligned with defense-sector demands and should be relatively inexpensive to deploy.

But in keeping with our critical journalistic lens, we must be clear: the real risk isn’t the blockchain. It’s ReElement’s ability to scale physical production to the point where such a system becomes indispensable rather than ornamental. National security hinges on getting that part right.

© 2025 Rare Earth Exchanges™ – Accelerating Transparency, Accuracy, and Insight Across the Rare Earth & Critical Minerals Supply Chain.