The Moment of Truth: Atomic 3 and the San Juan Case Reveal the Plot Behind the Blockade of Innovation in Argentina

Pablo Rutigliano asserts that the San Juan Technical Lithium project brings a reality back to the table: Argentina has lithium

By: Pablo Rutigliano

President of the Latin American Lithium Chamber – CEO of Atómico 3

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The moment of truth has arrived. Everything that Atómico 3 has been warning about and documenting with technical rigor is beginning to become evident. The San Juan Technical Lithium Project, one of the pillars of national development in electromobility, once again brings to light the reality that many tried to hide: Argentina has lithium, it has copper, it has talent, and it has technology, but it also has entrenched interests that did everything possible to prevent a pioneering company from proving it.

For years, Atómico 3 has been promoting a mining tokenization model that allows real assets—such as proven and probable reserves—to be linked to a blockchain traceability system, complying with the highest standards of transparency and record-keeping. This model, internationally recognized as the path to economic democratization, encountered resistance in Argentina from a network of officials, business chambers, paid journalists, and economic groups that thrive on the monopoly of misinformation.

The narrative constructed was as absurd as it was intentional. It was said that there was no lithium in San Juan, that Atómico had no concessions, that the project lacked support. What they never mentioned is that Atómico 3 never claimed that the concessions were its own: they belong to private companies that signed tokenization contracts, duly documented, auditable, and presented to the courts.

Even so, the National Securities Commission (CNV) decided to arbitrarily suspend Atómico 3, ignoring the legal and technical grounds of its own Resolution 1060/25, which regulates and enables the tokenization of real-world assets under registration, traceability, and regulatory control. It was an unfounded measure, driven by the lobby of those who cannot tolerate technology dismantling the old power structures.

Because what is really at stake is not a license or an administrative interpretation. What is at stake is Argentina's economic model. A model that must decide whether it will continue to be concentrated in a few hands or whether it will open the doors to traceability, transparency, and citizen participation in the country's real assets.

Blockchain is the most powerful transparency tool created in modern economic history. Its essence is public verification, traceability, and the impossibility of manipulating data. That is why, when Atómico 3 applied this technology to the mining world, many understood that there would no longer be room for opacity, hidden figures, or under-invoiced exports. It was the beginning of the end of a system that for decades had enriched itself at the expense of misinformation.

Today, the truth is coming to light. The documents, minutes, and contracts are in the hands of the justice system, where everything will be verified. What until recently was defamed by some "biased" media outlets—which repeated the arguments of interested parties without question—is beginning to be reversed by technical evidence.

This reflects the challenge facing the country: choosing between the past and the future. The past of economic concentration, censorship, and arbitrariness, or the future of traceability, transparency, and economic justice proposed by tokenization.

Atómico 3 was and is the first company in the world to apply the tokenization of real mining assets under a regulatory structure. Its path was not easy, but it set a historic precedent that neither censorship nor power can erase.

Because the truth, when documented and verified on the blockchain, needs no defenders: it defends itself.