Modern technologies have been revolutionizing industries for years, providing competitive advantages to companies. As a technology based on decentralization, Blockchain becomes a tool to support and secure processes and transactions in industries such as mining and power engineering. It also supports supply chain processes, which are particularly important in today's mining business. The use of advanced cryptography methods results in increased cyber security in entities that implement such solutions. The use of Blockchain technology carries a strong message, both to competitors and customers, about intensifying work on authentication and process traceability. This publication focuses on defining the trust gap problem in the mining industry and on examples of the use of technology in data traceability processes. The mining industry is beginning to use technologies which had been previously available only in the theoretical realm. The ongoing development towards a smart industry entails a number of studies and expert assessments, aimed to integrate knowledge from the mining and IT areas. The combination of these research areas leads to an increase in the value of both the companies implementing modern technologies and traditional companies that implement such applications in their value chain. Based on the analyzed articles, two main areas of consideration in the context of the extractive industry were distinguished: systems that track and secure the flow of data in specific mining processes and systems that monitor and secure information on processes which support the raw materials supply chain.

The exploration of mineral resources is an area of strategic importance for the pace of further development of all industries. The results of companies deciding to carry out exploration work depend on further investments of mining companies, i.e. the entities purchasing full deposit documentation. Being at the beginning of the entire mining process, junior mines assume a high risk related to investments enabling the commencement of works without providing high guarantees of the project’s success. Companies running these types of projects must seek funding in a variety of ways. One of these is to try to raise capital from the stock trading markets. However, the specificity of junior companies does not allow them to start on the main trading floors, hence the decision to enter alternative markets. In considering the broader context of the activities of junior mines, research was conducted on companies listed on the London Alternative Investment Market (AIM). In the first part, this concerned the market characteristics – the market value added values were determined for selected ranges of market capitalization. In the second part, which is a statistical study, factors that may affect their market value was checked. The analysis covered both traditional value drivers – related to revenues, the demand for net working capital, investment expenses and the cost of equity – and their supplementation with selected values of financial statements. The result of the analysis is a regression equation indicating the factors that have a statistically significant impact on the market value of junior mines listed on AIM London.