The creation of diamonds at De Beers will be powered by blockchain technology.
De Beers has finally released the much-anticipated blockchain-based Tracr technology, which will be used to monitor and control diamond production.
In order to better manage its diamond production and distribution, the global diamond mining company De Beers has introduced a proprietary platform that is backed by blockchain technology.
The company has been hard at work developing a blockchain-based system for quite some time now with the intention of using it to monitor, record, and control its diamond mining, manufacturing, and distribution across the world. In 2018, the Tracr platform through its initial round of piloting and testing; this year, the firm that developed the platform has finally made it available to a wider audience in order to better serve the diamond mining industry.
De Beers has already implemented the system across its global operations, and the company expects that around 25 percent of its diamond production, measured in terms of value, is now registered on Tracr for the first three Sights of 2022. A “Sight” is a collective phrase used in the diamond industry to refer to a sale event and the individual lots of diamonds that are available for purchase.
The platform will provide producers and retailers in the diamond business with access to records of a diamond’s history that cannot be altered in any way. The immutable record of diamond credentials will be of benefit to sightholders, which are companies that are authorised to purchase large quantities of rough diamonds. This, in turn, will provide retailers with the additional assurance of a diamond’s pedigree and origin. Sightholders are authorised bulk purchasers of rough diamonds.
De Beers has boasted about the performance of the platform, specifically its ability to scale in order to keep up with periods of high production. Tracr will be able to register one million diamonds per week on the platform, which is a major upgrade in comparison to centralised platforms that have been criticised for struggling with large volumes of data that have historically caused bottlenecks in this process. Tracr will be able to do this because it will be able to register one million diamonds per week on the platform.
Tracr, like many other blockchain-powered systems, will give consumers and corporations the ability to regulate permissions related to the use of diamond data as well as access to it. This is done on an individual basis, with each user being provided with their very own distributed version of the platform, in a manner that is analogous to that of a typical node operator in other blockchain networks.
When it comes to the day-to-day operations of the diamond industry, secrecy and safety are of the utmost importance. As a diamond makes its way through the value chain, the blockchain-based mechanism that Tracr utilises ensures that each transaction that takes place on the platform is immutable. This eliminates any possibility of the data being altered in any way.
The most recent Diamond Industry report was published in 2021 by the Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC), in collaboration with Bain & Company. This research highlighted major trends for the industry and provided a view for the following decade.
A significant takeaway was a greater emphasis on environmentally responsible and socially responsible consumption. According to the findings of the survey, consumers are becoming far more aware of the need to protect the environment, ensure that supply chains are free from conflict, and reduce the carbon footprint of mining operations.
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According to the Chief Executive Officer of the De Beers Group, Bruce Cleaver, the introduction of Tracr to the industry is a move in the right direction as customer behaviour shifts to coincide with conservation and ecologically responsible operations.
Cleaver expects that the technique would inspire a “technological shift that will boost standards and raise expectations of what we are capable of offering to our end clients” and that it will inspire greater faith in natural diamonds.
According to the AWDC and Bain research, the only country to witness an increase in rough diamond production in 2020 was South Africa. Botswana, Angola, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo all had modest decreases in their production, while South Africa was the only country to see a rise.
Lefoko Moagi, the Minister of Minerals and Energy for Botswana, is confident that the Tracr system will assist the industry in continuing to navigate the economic uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 outbreak.
“Confidence in the diamond’s place of origin is of the utmost importance, and we are looking forward to witnessing the roll out of this new programme, which will bring new benefits to the diamond business and give additional certainty to consumers.”
