Some businesses lose money on every single transaction but still end up profitable. It's strange but real. Think about a meatpacking plant in the 1950s that made nothing selling pork but made a margin selling insulin from pig parts. Or a quant hedge fund that loses money on every trade but makes a killing by combining weak signals into something strong. Or a streaming service that can’t make it on ads or subscriptions alone, but thrives on both. In each case, it's the mix that matters. This isn't about cost-cutting or branding. It's about building something durable by weaving weak parts into a strong whole. ## **What I'm thinking about.** 1. **Fusion and Negative ROI**: Fusion, in energy terms, is still a money loser. You pour in more energy than you get back. It barely hits "scientific breakeven," and we're far from "economic breakeven." But that's changing. Fusion reactors might have a new revenue model: turning mercury into gold. Ref: [[Nuclear Reactors]] | [[alchemy]] 2. **Gold from Mercury**: One fusion startup, Marathon Fusion, found that certain mercury isotopes used in fusion reactors can decay into gold. It takes time, 7 to 18 years to be safe to handle, but the numbers are surprising. A single reactor could create up to 3 tons of gold a year, worth more than the energy it produces. At current prices, the gold could be worth $320 million a year vs. $266 million from electricity. Ref: [[The Finance of Alchemy]] 3. **Implications for Finance and Supply**: Most gold demand is financial, not industrial. It sits in vaults backing ETFs, futures, and central bank reserves. And slightly radioactive gold can do that job too. Maybe better. It's hard to steal and doesn’t need to circulate. If the supply of gold rises, it changes how we think about gold as money. It could blunt its role as an inflation hedge. Or it could just shift who controls the market. That matters, because gold’s value is rooted in trust, tradition, and scarcity. Ref: [[Gold Investment Thesis]] ## **So What?** Fusion may never beat solar or fission on pure energy returns. But if it makes more money from byproducts like gold, it changes the math. This model, making money from the mix, not each part, shows up everywhere. And it gives oddball ideas a chance. > We shouldn't ask, "Does this work on its own?" but, "Can this become part of a bundle that wins?" Sometimes gold is just a side effect. And sometimes, that side effect makes the whole machine worth building. Ref: [[Turn Alumina By Products to Value#Hypothesis to disprove]] | [[Gold Equity Valuation vs Spot Price Regime#Why Gold Stocks Are a Steal Right Now: The Institutional Blind Spot]]