Rare Carat Inc., an e-commerce platform for buying diamonds and diamond rings, today announced a partnership with London-based startup Everledger Ltd., a developer of immutable distributed ledger blockchain technology for asset ownership to provide greater transparency information about diamond sales.

Rare Carat runs a marketplace that allows people to search a wide variety of retail diamond specialists across the world to find their perfect stone. Now, with the help of Everledger, customers can get even deeper insights into the process.

Using blockchain technology, diamonds can be tracked from the time the raw materials are pulled from the ground, refined, cut, transported and sold. The technology enables each transaction to be recorded to an immutable historical chain of evidence that can be audited at any time.

Combined with industry-standard methods of identifying diamonds, these immutable ledgers add an additional sophisticated technology layer to diamond supply chain regulatory compliance. That’s especially important for diamonds, which are subject to ethics regulations due to their connection to conflicts around the world and there are also ecological concerns when mining them.

“Diamonds may be transparent, but the diamond supply chain isn’t always as transparent as it could be,” said Apeksha Kothari, chief operating officer of Rare Carat. “Rare Carat’s partnership with Everledger is a step in the right direction in improving much-needed transparency right down to the retail level.”

With Everledger’s platform, retailers can easily show that they are in compliance with regulations by showing that their supply of diamonds comes from conflict-free areas and comports with industry standards.

This is becoming even easier for diamond retailers as younger generations shift to online ordering from in-person sales due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Web pages and mobile apps are multimedia and information-heavy, making it easy to display reports about the origin of diamonds including their ethical and sustainable sourcing.

“Consumers will get access to provenance reports and be able to reliably track the diamond through the blockchain,” said Kothari. “At Rare Carat our mission is to help customers buy their diamonds with confidence. And part of this is providing customers with trust on ethical sourcing.”

According to statistics and facts tracking website Statista, the worldwide diamond industry accounts for $26.7 billion in polished diamonds. The U.S. has the largest share of all polished diamonds, with 48% of the demand worldwide. Some 142 million carats of diamonds were estimated to have been produced from mines worldwide in 2019 from countries including Australia, Canada, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Botswana, South Africa and Russia.

Everleger’s enterprise-grade blockchain platform has also been put to use in other industries, including wine and spirits, gemstones, apparel and recycling, to provide transparent supply chain tracking.

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