The Russian Ministry of Education and Science and Bitcarat.com have unveiled a blockchain based mechanism for tracking the natural diamonds. Bitcarat.com tracks the natural diamonds across the supply chain from polishing, cutting, mining, and to the buyer of the diamond. The Russian developed platform eliminates the fake and synthetic diamonds.
It stores the digital code of the natural diamond at the mining stage in a distributed database. The rights of the diamond are stored safely with the help of blockchain technology. It prevents hacking. The blockchain based platform BitCarat.com facilitates the trading of the diamonds. Other prominent companies including Hyperledger and IBM have already introduced blockchain based platform for diamond giants: De Beers to trace and track the diamonds.
Alrosa joins the pilot program
Alrosa, a state-owned company in Russia, joined the pilot program – Tracer, a blockchain based diamond tracking platform, in October 2018. De Beers, a firm based in the UK, and BCG Digital Ventures work together to create blockchain based platform.
Tracer assigns a unique ID for the
physical diamond to facilitate tracking from manufacturing to the retail. The
details of the diamond such as clarity, color, and carat are consolidated and
stored safely. De Beers successfully tracked the 100 high-value diamonds using
Tracer from production to retail.
Blockchain technology paves the way for ethical and legal diamonds
The blockchain-based platform allows certification of legal and ethical diamonds from mining to retail. The conflict diamonds or blood diamonds are extracted in the war zones and sold to support the insurgency. The origin of the commercial diamonds is unknown. Tracing such diamonds is difficult. Therefore, the introduction of blockchain based platform is vital for checking the genuineness of the diamonds. The online ledger created using blockchain prevents tampering of the data.
Tracer, an innovative blockchain platform, will be introduced for use by the entire diamond industry. It offers confidence to the customers that diamonds are conflict-free and natural.
Chief Executive Officer of De Beers,
Bruce Cleaver said Tracer has successfully shown its ability to track the
diamonds. It is a significant achievement for the company. The company intends
to share this platform with leading players in the industry.
