NEW YORK, NY / ACCESS Newswire / September 26, 2025 / For decades, counterfeiters have thrived in the shadows, hijacking fashion’s prestige and siphoning billions from an industry built on brand, trust, and craftsmanship. Fake bags, knockoff sneakers, and copycat fabrics have been smuggled into every corner of commerce, draining value from labels that spend fortunes building reputations. The damage isn’t just economic. It erodes consumer trust, dilutes sustainability claims, and turns e-commerce platforms into digital flea markets where fraud masquerades as fashion. The scale is staggering, with trillions lost as of 2025 and counterfeiters adapting faster than the safeguards designed to stop them.
That ends now. This announced agreement between SMX (NASDAQ:SMX) and CETI, one of Europe’s most respected textile research centers, represents the technological revolution for an industry that has been hijacked for too long. Instead of relying on logos, tags, or human judgment, SMX’s molecular fingerprinting system embeds authenticity at the material level, while CETI’s pilot lines provide the industrial validation to scale it across the European market.
Together, they are moving toward a world where every fiber has a digital passport and every recycled material carries verifiable value. What counterfeiters have always exploited is the lack of transparency. SMX and CETI are replacing opacity with proof.
CETI and SMX Become the Terminators
Lille, France, is now set to become the launch pad for Europe’s fight against fakes. By fusing molecular-level identity with blockchain-backed traceability, this collaboration shortens the distance between lab breakthroughs and market adoption. That means high-value recycled fabrics can flow into luxury fashion and sportswear at commercial speed. It means tamper-proof data creates finance-ready transparency, where sustainability claims finally unlock economic benefits. And it means the ecosystem multiplier effect kicks in as more brands, more regulators, and more industries rally around the same technology. Proof becomes the universal language, and Europe has just declared it will speak fluently.
The counterfeit problem has always been bigger than the boutiques on the Champs-Élysées. E-commerce platforms like eBay deserve credit for putting stringent rules in place against fake listings and working to protect buyers. The intent is there, but the reality is that rules are broken every day, and counterfeiters still slip through the cracks.
That’s the weakness counterfeiters exploit, because human graders are left squinting at photos or running fingers over better fakes, while consumers gamble on whether a $150 “new with tags” Coach bag is a steal or a scam. Imagine swapping human guesswork for scanners running SMX’s traceability markers. Authentication becomes instant. Proof arrives in seconds. eBay could transform from counterfeit watchdog to counterfeit executioner, leading the revolution that finally shuts the listing door on knockoffs.
Protecting Brand Legacy
Luxury houses like Coach, Prada, Hermès, and others built their brands on scarcity and quality. Counterfeiters turned that into a joke, flooding the market with imitations that undercut value. The SMX-CETI model restores the natural order. A bag, suit, or silk scarf or tie isn’t real because someone says it is. It’s real because the fibers themselves can prove it, backed by digital passports that regulators can verify, financiers can monetize, and consumers can trust. For the first time, counterfeiting is on defense, forced to fight technology it cannot mimic.
This SMX-CETI alliance is more than a collaboration. It is the industrial validation of an entirely new economy, one where circularity, recycling, and authenticity are not slogans but measurable realities. Counterfeiters had their run. They turned loopholes into empires. But the days of flooding the market with fraudulent luxury are over. Proof is now currency. Europe’s fashion industry is setting the new standard, and with SMX and CETI providing the tools, counterfeiters will soon run out of places to peddle their nonsense, including the city sidewalk tables that once passed off those “luxury product deals of a lifetime.”
About SMX
As global businesses face new and complex challenges relating to carbon neutrality and meeting new governmental and regional regulations and standards, SMX is able to offer players along the value chain access to its marking, tracking, measuring and digital platform technology to transition more successfully to a low-carbon economy.
Forward-Looking Statements
The information in this press release includes “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding expectations, hopes, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding the future. In addition, any statements that refer to projections, forecasts or other characterizations of future events or circumstances, including any underlying assumptions, are forward-looking statements. The words “anticipate,” “believe,” “contemplate,” “continue,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intends,” “may,” “will,” “might,” “plan,” “possible,” “potential,” “predict,” “project,” “should,” “would” and similar expressions may identify forward-looking statements, but the absence of these words does not mean that a statement is not forward-looking. Forward-looking statements in this press release may include, for example: matters relating to the Company’s fight against abusive and possibly illegal trading tactics against the Company’s stock; successful launch and implementation of SMX’s joint projects with manufacturers and other supply chain participants of gold, steel, rubber and other materials; changes in SMX’s strategy, future operations, financial position, estimated revenues and losses, projected costs, prospects and plans; SMX’s ability to develop and launch new products and services, including its planned Plastic Cycle Token; SMX’s ability to successfully and efficiently integrate future expansion plans and opportunities; SMX’s ability to grow its business in a cost-effective manner; SMX’s product development timeline and estimated research and development costs; the implementation, market acceptance and success of SMX’s business model; developments and projections relating to SMX’s competitors and industry; and SMX’s approach and goals with respect to technology. These forward-looking statements are based on information available as of the date of this press release, and current expectations, forecasts and assumptions, and involve a number of judgments, risks and uncertainties. Accordingly, forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing views as of any subsequent date, and no obligation is undertaken to update forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date they were made, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required under applicable securities laws. As a result of a number of known and unknown risks and uncertainties, actual results or performance may be materially different from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Some factors that could cause actual results to differ include: the ability to maintain the listing of the Company’s shares on Nasdaq; changes in applicable laws or regulations; any lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on SMX’s business; the ability to implement business plans, forecasts, and other expectations, and identify and realize additional opportunities; the risk of downturns and the possibility of rapid change in the highly competitive industry in which SMX operates; the risk that SMX and its current and future collaborators are unable to successfully develop and commercialize SMX’s products or services, or experience significant delays in doing so; the risk that the Company may never achieve or sustain profitability; the risk that the Company will need to raise additional capital to execute its business plan, which may not be available on acceptable terms or at all; the risk that the Company experiences difficulties in managing its growth and expanding operations; the risk that third-party suppliers and manufacturers are not able to fully and timely meet their obligations; the risk that SMX is unable to secure or protect its intellectual property; the possibility that SMX may be adversely affected by other economic, business, and/or competitive factors; and other risks and uncertainties described in SMX’s filings from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
EMAIL: info@securitymattersltd.com
SOURCE: SMX (Security Matters) Public Limited
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