Spot Gold Falls 2% to $4,057.67 per Ounce in Intraday Trading

Spot gold fell 2% intraday to $4,057.67 an ounce on Oct. 22, putting a sharp move in the precious-metal market on the radar of crypto traders tracking cross-asset price action.

A separate development that day involved a potential new source of gold. U.S. startup Marathon Fusion said it had achieved what it called high-efficiency alchemy, using beam-driven fusion to convert mercury-198 into mercury-197. That isotope decays into stable gold-197 after about 64 hours, the company said in a video describing the process.

The company’s video presented laboratory simulations estimating output of more than 2 tons of gold a year for each gigawatt of thermal power. Marathon Fusion said the process could also breed tritium and generate electricity, with gold production potentially doubling a fusion plant’s economic value.

The gold figure is a simulated production estimate, not an operating output figure. Marathon Fusion’s account presents gold as one possible byproduct of a process built around beam-driven fusion.