Junior mining companies, particularly in high-risk exploration, grapple with relentless investor demands for constant news flow that clash with the irregular pace of fieldwork. Chris Frostad, CEO of Purepoint Uranium, dubs this the “exploration treadmill,” where lumpy progress—delayed by seasonality, assay waits, and analysis—forces diluted updates and suboptimal drilling to appease markets rather than geology. This mismatch has evolved from COVID-era digital shifts, replacing in-depth banker meetings with shallow social media bites and videos, prioritizing retail metrics like market cap over asset quality.​