Mr. Anthony Margarit reports

DRILLING UNDERWAY AT K2 GOLD'S MOJAVE PROJECT

K2 Gold Corp. has commenced its 2026 exploration and drilling program at the company's 100-per-cent-owned Mojave project in Inyo county, California.

Key highlights:

• K2 has commenced an initial 5,650-metre drilling program, with the approved plan of operations providing for up to approximately 14,000 metres of drilling across the Eastern target area.
• Initial drilling is focused on the Dragonfly zone, where K2 previously intersected 86.9 m grading 4.0 grams per tonne gold from surface, including 24.4 m grading 10.9 g/t Au (see K2 news release dated Nov. 30, 2020).
• Subsequent drilling will test the Newmont zone, where K2 previously intersected 41.15 m grading 1.64 g/t Au, including 10.67 m grading 2.36 g/t Au, within a broad corridor of near-surface oxide gold mineralization (see K2 news release Feb. 4, 2021).
• Surficial exploration work to actively develop the Flores, Gold Valley and Stega targets is under way, and will occur concurrently with the drilling.
• The program is fully permitted under the recently approved environmental impact statement, representing the culmination of a multiyear federal permitting process.
• Program is fully financed: K2 has approved a $9.8-million exploration budget for the work (see K2 news release dated Jan. 5, 2026).

"It has been a long road to get to this point, and it feels like we're just getting started," stated Anthony Margarit, president and chief executive officer of K2 Gold. "The commencement of drilling at Mojave represents a significant step forward for K2 Gold as we begin the largest and most comprehensive drill program in the company's history."

2026 drilling campaign

K2's 2026 drilling campaign at Mojave will commence with at least 5,650 m of drilling across two priority target areas, with approximately 14,000 m of drilling approved for within the Eastern target area, a greater-than-four-kilometre-long north-south-trending corridor of high-grade, near-surface oxide gold mineralization.

Dragonfly -- high-grade gold at surface

Drilling will commence at the Dragonfly zone, where multiple north-northwest-trending, steeply west-dipping fault structures cut through receptive calcareous siltstones and silty limestones. High-grade oxide gold mineralization is associated with silicification, brecciation and strong iron-oxide staining, with historical surficial chip sampling results of 4.2 g/t Au over 42.67 m and K2's highlight 2020 discovery drill intercept of 4.02 g/t Au over 86.9 m, including 10.9 g/t Au over 24.4 m.

An initial 3,000 m of drilling is allocated to Dragonfly to test the extent of the high-grade gold in the discovery structure along strike while also testing parallel structures found to both the east and the west. Approximately four parallel to subparallel structures cut the area to be drilled, with each structure hosting high-grade gold in outcrop.

Newmont -- extensive continuity

Subsequent drilling will occur at the Newmont zone, where a north-south-trending, moderately to shallowly west-dipping fault zone hosted at the contact between calcareous siltstone and limestone. Mineralization occurs in both host rocks, is associated with strong sericite-clay alteration plus or minus silicification, brecciation, and local carbonate and barite veining within limestone. The Newmont zone has been drill tested for over 500 m of strike, and remains open along trend and downdip.

An initial 2,650 m of drilling is allocated to Newmont to test the extent of the fault zone to the south and continuity of higher-grade gold mineralization in the vicinity of the Discovery outcrop, where historical trenching has returned values of 3.1 g/t Au over 45.7 m and K2's 2020 drilling cut 1.64 g/t Au over 41.15 m.

The drill program is being conducted under the recently approved plan of operations following the publication of an environmental impact statement for the project after more than four years of rigorous independent review and consultation with local stakeholders, communities and tribes. This milestone comes at the conclusion of one of the most comprehensive permitting reviews undertaken for a mineral exploration project in California in recent years.

Continuing exploration

K2 has also commenced a program of geological mapping, focused rock sampling and target reinterpretation for high-priority exploration targets, including the Flores, Gold Valley and Stega targets.

At Flores, reinterpretation of the structural setting that resulted in 3.78 g/t Au over 43 m in channel sampling is under way. Follow-up prospecting and mapping in the region have confirmed gold mineralization in multiple clusters of highly anomalous rock samples over 1.75 kilometres. The target region is undrilled by K2, and is considered high priority due to its high gold tenor and proximity to the Newmont zone.

Gold Valley is located approximately 1.5 km north-northwest along the same mineralized structural corridor as the Dragonfly zone, and has emerged as one of the company's highest-priority exploration targets. Surface sampling of oxidized, jasperoidal breccia outcrops at surface has produced results of up to 375 g/t Au, including the first visible gold noted on the Mojave property. Work in 2026 will focus on refining the structural system at Gold Valley and expanding the footprint of known mineralization.

K2 also intends to return to the Stega zone, a district-scale copper-gold target located on the western side of the Mojave project. Historical work by K2 has defined a sediment-hosted and structurally controlled copper-gold system returning results of up to 14.2 per cent Cu in rock grab sampling at the Copper zone, which is up to 250 m wide, 1.8 km in length and open to the north-northwest, and results of up to 12.68 g/t Au within the 600 m wide, 1.8-kilometre-long Gold zone. Exploration in 2026 will focus on refining the Copper zone.

Incentive stock option grant

K2 would also like to announce the granting of 8,195,000 incentive stock option to certain directors, officers, employees and advisers of the company. The options are exercisable at 70 cents per share for a period of five years from the date of grant. The options were granted pursuant to the company's shareholder-approved stock option plan and are subject to the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange and any applicable regulatory hold periods.

Qualified person

The technical information in this news release has been prepared in accordance with Canadian regulatory requirements set out in NI 43-101 and reviewed and approved by Eric Buitenhuis, MSc, PGeo, K2's qualified person and vice-president of exploration.

About K2 Gold Corp.

K2 is led by a team that has delivered over $2.6-billion worth of gold transactions, including Great Bear Resources' $1.8-billion sale to Kinross and Kaminak Gold's sale to Goldcorp for approximately $520-million. Chairman John Robins, who also chaired Kaminak, is poised to deliver yet again for K2. In addition, K2 is part of Discovery Group, an alliance of companies responsible for the discovery of over 10 million ounces of gold.

The Si2 project is a low-sulphidation epithermal gold system located in Nevada within the Walker Lane trend. Historical shallow drilling tested only the uppermost levels of the system, and returned anomalous gold, silver and pathfinder elements. Since acquiring the project, K2 has completed detailed geologic mapping, surface geochemistry, geophysics, alteration mineralogy studies, fluid inclusion analysis and age dating. These integrated data sets confirm that prior drilling did not test the interpreted boiling zone, where gold grades are typically maximized in epithermal systems. In early 2026, K2 completed an eight-hole, 3,871-metre exploration drilling program targeting the depths of the system. Assay results are pending.

The Wels project lies approximately 60 km south of Fuerte Metals' Coffee project discovered by Kaminak Gold Corp. (formerly a Discovery Group company prior to its acquisition by Goldcorp-Newmont). Both the Coffee project and the Wels project lie within the Tintina gold belt, share similar characteristics and are host to structurally controlled gold mineralization within intrusive rocks exhibiting multiple trends of mineralization. K2's 2023 reverse circulation drilling program at the Wels project intersected gold in each of 12 drill holes, including the discovery of a new mineralized corridor at the Saddle South target.

The Wolf project is a new district-scale gold exploration project in west-central Yukon territory, Canada, located 80 km south of the 3.0-million-ounce-gold Coffee gold project currently under development by Fuerte Metals. Wolf consists of the Wolf South block, a greater-than-10 kilometre-long gold-in-soil anomaly previously held by multiple operators and consolidated by K2, and the Wolf North claim blocks which host greenfield intrusion-related and epithermal gold targets.

We seek Safe Harbor.