This content was first published on IGR – Italian Gemological Review no. 5 in 2018. The information provided here is therefore current as of the original publication date.
In 2015 a British start up showed the world of operators that they could meet the task of tracing gems, one of the objectives on which the jewellery sector have had great expectations for a decade. The system is based on the application of a specific technology, Blockchain, that is a decentralised digital register of transactions that can extend and branch through the various contracting parties in an encrypted and then secure way as a centralisation of data no longer exists. To be clear, from the technological point of view, it is the same environment as Bit coins, the crypto currencies that are shaking the finance sector as they represent a true revolution of the currency idea. Are the same uncertainties, the same curiosities shaking diamond operators? Probably not, as the use of traceability on goods is more controllable and less abstract than the virtual coins one. In fact, diamonds do not need an Authority minting coins. The intuition of Leanne Kemp, Everledger CEO, was that of using a personal fingerprint consisting in 40 metadata in the laser inscription that we have been able to place on diamond girdles for a long time. Once obtained an inalterable physical ID, all transactions can be registered. In this way, the ethical credentials can be written down univocally starting from the Kimberley certifications, the gemmological ones through the reports of the involved institutions, sale and resale transactions, insurance policies.
Once refined its own system, Everledger was able to implement the Diamond Time-Lapse Protocol (DTLP) offering a single platform that widens the public to all those involved in the diamond sector, miners, cutters, wholesalers, retailers and final consumers. Then, a gem opens a series of windows that could not be imagined before through which even the cutters’ profiles can be accessed. If the effects on marketing will undoubtedly be explosive, the methods to reach, through traceability, a true ethical certification ensuring the sustainability and legitimacy of the passages from the source, always one of the most controversial and complex steps to carry out, are still to be evaluated. However, two facts prove that this is an anticipation of the future of stone trade: The biggest diamond manufacturers entered the Blockchain field. And Gübelin, that not by chance a couple of years ago patented an ID for emeralds through nanoparticles, twin application of the laser inscription on diamonds, entrusted Everledger with the task of developing a Blockchain technology for coloured stones. Games are officially open. Soon gemmology will be asked to evaluate traceability as well as identification systems.
Gem News published on IGR – Italian Gemological Review #5, Autumn 2018
