Could The Metals Company Turn You Into a Crypto-Style Millionaire by 2025?

Deep-sea mining meets decentralized wealth creation—but will this gamble pay off?

Beneath the waves lies a potential goldmine. The Metals Company (TMC) bets big on harvesting polymetallic nodules from the ocean floor, promising critical minerals for the green revolution. Yet skeptics see another speculative play dressed in ESG clothing.

High-risk, high-reward calculus

TMC's valuation swings like a memecoin on leverage. With regulatory hurdles thicker than a Bitcoin blockchain and extraction costs that'd make a DeFi whale flinch, the path to profitability remains murkier than a Tornado Cash transaction.

The ultimate test? Converting vague promises into real revenue—something crypto projects and mining startups alike struggle with. One thing's certain: this isn't your grandfather's value investment. It's a Web3-level gamble with Mother Nature's poker chips.

Image source: Getty Images.

Why deep-sea mining has investors talking

First, let's talk opportunity.

The Clarion-Clipperton Zone, where The Metals Company plans to operate, contains trillions of potato-sized polymetallic nodules. These small, metal-rich rocks contain nickel, manganese, copper, zinc, cobalt, and other minerals. In other words, they hold the building blocks for EV batteries, renewable power grids, advanced defense systems, and dozens of other uses.

The U.S. still imports roughly 80% of rare earths, and more than three-quarters of that comes from China. After leaping into the rare-metal business before most of the rest of the world, Beijing now controls about 70% of global rare-earth mining and nearly 90% of processing. Recent export restrictions on certain rare earths and magnets have only underscored the need for alternative sources.

But big hurdles remain

TMC's pitch is that deep-sea mining could deliver rare earths at scale without relying on land-based mines. The plan seems simple enough: With vacuum-like machinery, it'll pump nodules to the surface, process them in a seawater slurry, then discharge sediment back to the sea.

Locating nodules isn't a problem. The company has mapped and secured exploration rights to two massive swaths of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. Its biggest hurdle, however, is getting permission to start mining. The key gatekeeper is the International Seabed Authority (ISA), a U.N.-linked body that sets the rules for mining in international waters. Currently, the ISA is still finalizing its rulebook, and, until it's finished, nobody's getting a commercial license.

For TMC, that could mean waiting months, maybe years, before the ISA gives it the green light. Any longer than a few years, and the company could burn through its cash reserves long before the first nodules surface.

That said, there is an unusual wrinkle with the ISA: The U.S. never ratified the treaty that created it. That could open the door -- narrowly -- for a U.S.-based company to bypass the ISA entirely if national interest is at stake.

TMC is currently trying to wedge its way though that gap. Earlier this year, it filed for a mining permit under an old U.S. offshore minerals law just days after a WHITE House order revived political interest in rare earths. If it works, the company could have a head start that no other deep-sea miner currently has, effectively turning years of regulatory waiting into an open lane toward production.

Is The Metals Company a millionaire maker?

Let's do the math.

If you bought 1,000 shares of TMC at today's price ($5.32), your initial position WOULD be worth about $5,320. For that to grow to $1 million, you would need a 188-fold gain from today's price, or a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 68.8% over a decade. That's extremely rare in public markets.

True, TMC has massive potential. But the company is still pre-revenue. Despite the fact that its market cap sits around $2.1 billion, it isn't generating commercial revenue, at least not meaningfully.

It's also burning cash. In the first quarter of this year, it reported a net loss of $20.6 million, or $0.06 per share. Although it claims to have about $43.8 million in total liquidity -- with $2.3 in cash -- that cushion could evaporate quick without a breakthrough on the permit front.

Don't get me wrong: TMC can disrupt the global supply of rare earths, if it can get its business off the ground and into the sea. But since its business model is still unproven, sentiment and expectations will drive the stock in the short term, which could make it volatile. It's one to keep on the radar, but without clear steps toward production, I'm not ready to anchor a large position here.