Online jewelry retailer Brilliant Earth uses blockchain to track down diamonds’ originals. The biggest Russian diamonds miner got under sanctions.
While buying diamonds you can choose some specs as cut, color, clarity, carat. And obviously the assurance of genuine sourced diamond.
For proving these specs Brilliant Earth uses blockchain technology. Decentralized databases help consumers to see information about each diamond source, manufacturing, its original lot number, etc.
“When I was getting engaged, I would go into different jewelers, and I’d ask, ‘Where does this diamond come from?’ I never got a straight answer”, Brilliant Earth CEO Beth Gerstein said.
To launch the blockchain system the company has partnered with a blockchain-based digital ledger platform Everledger a few years ago. Now Brilliant Earth has up to 10% of its diamond inventory on the blockchain, and permanently increasing this number.
The problem of diamonds sources arose again with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as most of the Russian companies got under West sanctions. Among these companies is the largest diamond miner in the world Alrosa, which stands for 90% of Russian diamonds, and 28% of global mined diamonds.
“What blockchain has done is combine all of that together in a single killer protocol that enables us to be able to connect globally this information and synthesize it, secure it and enable its truth to be a single version globally”, – said Everledger CEO Leanne Kemp.
So blockchain could solve the problem with diamonds, sold by rebel groups to fund conflicts, money laundering, and terror financing. But some say the technology won’t be a panacea for the industry because of the complicated process of diamonds certification.
Sources: Barron’s
