In breaking the frontiers of the diamond industry, from manufacturing to retail, technology must strive to reach beyond what it can do today, to the potential of what it can achieve tomorrow.
At the same time, technological development that brings true change must be in lock-step with the state of the industry at the current moment. It must address the needs of the consumer diamond market, and solve the problems of diamond producers, traders and retailers, so they can better deliver to their own customers.
In today’s world, the key to all this, is data.
The Issue of our Age: Diamond Provenance & Authenticity
Today, transparency and authenticity are central to the consumer experience. This imperative extends to diamonds - to the ability to trace, track and verify a diamond’s origins, from the mine, throughout every stage of manufacturing, the various stages of trading, all the way to the jewelry store and the final buyer.
The diamond market is cyclical - diamonds can be recut, repolished and resold through the years. The standard diamond report, a printed paper that comes with the diamond at the sale, purported to be the true marker of the diamond’s ID, is no longer considered reliable or trustworthy enough. Therefore, secure, digital provenance is key in the second hand diamond market as well, ensuring safe and authentic transactions every time a diamond is bought and sold.
Another issue covered by provenance is the mine from which a diamond is sourced. With the lab-grown diamond industry becoming more sophisticated with each passing year, the need to assure buyers that the diamond is natural and not man made, verifying the source mine, is critical.
In much the same way that the value of an antique is deeply impacted by the ability to verify and prove its provenance, diamond provenance is the backbone for authentication of a diamond’s true story.
Data Driven Technology: The Key to Diamond Provenance
In the diamond industry, like so many industries today, data is a key driver of innovation and progress. In 2016, an estimated 128 million carats of rough diamonds were mined worldwide. Sarine’s access to such a large proportion of the world’s diamonds creates the massive foundation of data that enables deep knowledge of the entire diamond pipeline in real time, and the development of technologies that can deliver true accuracy in diamond manufacturing and grading.
Data, and the ability to authenticate data, drives many industries - and in the future it will also drive the diamond industry. The capability to access, gather and store diamond data, of millions of rough and polished diamonds worldwide, is what will drive digital provenance of diamonds in the future.
Stay tuned for more content covering traceability, diamond provenance and data-driven diamond technologies.
