In the past, jewelry clients would rank authenticity, value, durability and rarity as essential qualities when deciding on a diamond or gemstone, with mine-to-market traceability being desirable but not vital. Fast forward to 2025, and many customers now consider a stone’s origin and journey to be crucial elements of the purchase.
Several companies have developed traceability solutions to make the gem and jewelry pipeline more transparent and infuse buyers with confidence. These solutions aim to prevent theft and fraud, ensure that the industry is adhering to any geopolitical sanctions and trade blockades — such as the US and EU restrictions on Russian diamonds — and certify that the stones are coming from ethical sources.
There are two general approaches to traceability: the physical one, which involves marking the stones themselves in some way, and the digital one, which relies on data declarations, blockchains, and scanning technology.
Administering a paternity test
How does one physically trace a precious stone from the mine to the market as it passes through cutting, polishing, and multiple sales and marketing platforms? A few companies are using innovative techniques to achieve this.
In 2017, Gübelin Gem lab introduced the Emerald Paternity Test, which involves applying customized DNA-based nanoparticles to rough emerald crystals directly at the mine. The company immerses the rough in a nanoparticle bath, and the particles get embedded deeply enough within the fissure- and fracture-laden emeralds to survive the enhancement and polishing processes. The encoded information in the nanoparticles is retrievable at any stage, making it possible to trace the stone back to the miner — a process not achievable with rubies or sapphires, as most of those undergo heat treatment, which destroys the particles.
The first to participate in the Emerald Paternity Test was mining company Gemfields. “Since the start of this program, Gemfields has sold over 110 kilograms of tagged rough emeralds, representing 18% of the volume offered at our high-quality auctions,” reports Adrian Banks, the miner’s managing director of product and sales.
The success of the Emerald Paternity Test led Gübelin to establish an independent subsidiary company, Provenance Proof, which recently launched a traceability solution for polished melee diamonds. Manufacturer KGK Suisse was its first client.
To make the process as secure as possible, “the nano-tracers are only available to companies who purchase directly from the mines and open their entire product flow to external audits and Provenance Proof,” explains Provenance Proof director Klemens Link. “Nano-tracers are applied at the factory under observation directly after the diamonds are polished. Each product pipeline, depending on the source, receives a unique DNA. Provenance Proof limits [the goods it covers] to diamonds that arrive sealed from the mine.”
The Provenance Proof blockchain records the seal’s opening as well as the entire process thereafter, all of which the external auditor monitors, he says.
More than skin-deep
Another initiative comes from DiaDNA, an emerging company that has leveraged artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to develop a different type of paternity test. The tool scans rough diamonds at an atomic level, then scans polished stones and matches them to their original rough by using AI to analyze and cross-reference their atomic makeup.
“We are excited to be at the forefront of applying these cutting-edge technologies to the diamond industry, and the progress we are witnessing is truly remarkable,” says DiaDNA board member Mayank Jain.
Opsydia, which formed in 2017 out of a project at the University of Oxford, uses laser inscriptions to track diamonds. Its founders include leading academics and researchers in lasers and optics, and the company has developed machines that etch sub-surface nano-ID inscriptions in cut and polished stones. The markings are microscopic and tamper-proof, have zero impact on clarity grading, and are only removable through the uneconomical move of recutting the stone, according to the company. However, the product is still in the testing phase and is not yet available on the market.
There’s also patent-backed public blockchain platform Authentia. Founded by colored-diamond specialist Bruno Scarselli, it uses proprietary subsurface nano-markers to track a diamond’s journey from the mine onward. Among other things, it offers a mobile app that the company says can read the information encoded in the diamond.
“Engaging with every step of the supply chain, our platform is technology-agnostic, capable of using various security technologies such as nano-tags, chemical markers, chips, and codes,” the company declares on its website.
Data sharing
On the purely digital front, there are many firms offering blockchain solutions. Of course, the integrity of these digital ledgers is only as good as the players who enter the data; the possibility of human interference will always create risk. However, there are products on the market that are working hard to minimize that risk.
In February, Sarine Technologies — which develops equipment for planning, processing, measuring, grading and trading diamonds and gems — announced a collaboration agreement with De Beers Group subsidiary Tracr, a diamond blockchain platform that registers rough diamonds at the source. Tracr has been scanning rough diamonds, mainly at De Beers’ mines, since 2018, and Sarine has been scanning rough and polished diamonds to provide its own services since 2009. Sarine processes over 100 million diamonds annually, and as of press time, Tracr had over 25% of the world’s rough diamonds by value registered on its platform.
The new agreement combines the two companies’ efforts into a single mine-to-market traceability program. “Unlike most traceability solutions that rely on declarations from entities throughout the pipeline, the synergy between Sarine’s advanced scanning and identification technology and Tracr’s blockchain platform, together with both parties’ verification algorithms, provides an objective, algorithmically based traceability solution that is both scalable and highly efficient,” the companies said in the announcement.
A clear advantage of this solution is that it’s easy to adopt. Because so many manufacturing companies are already using Sarine’s systems and working with De Beers diamonds, the added costs and time delays of integrating the program are minimal.
Getting into jewelry
Moving from the world of stones to the jewels they adorn, Singapore-based tech startup Experloop has developed a patent-pending gold microchip that jewelers can embed permanently in precious wearables like rings, necklaces and watches. Company founder Michael Koh is also the designer, CEO and founder of high-jewelry brand Caratell.
“We found that many jewels were being brought to us at Caratell that had been inherited,” he explains. “The sudden death of a parent would result in their next of kin inheriting jewels, but they have no idea about the true value, and they also don’t have the requisite paperwork. If they went to an unscrupulous jeweler, they would easily be cheated. The microchip in the jewelry means that someone who inherits or finds a piece of jewelry can easily access critical information related to [its] value and authenticate the piece.”
At a business-to-business (B2B) level, Experloop’s product, which supports a GPS tracker, can also help jewelry makers reconcile stock, as many of them provide goods to retailers on consignment. Koh is seeking partnerships with technology firms and investors to take his product global.
Meanwhile, Danish-Israeli fine-jewelry brand Elhanati has partnered with Botswanamark, a company that uses blockchain to offer its clients Botswana-mined diamonds that are cut and polished at preapproved factories in the African country and India.
Keeping the momentum going
For any solution to be impactful and sustainable, it must be practical and cost-effective.
Labs like the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) and the Swiss Gemmological Institute (SSEF) offer traceability products, but they only cover the rough diamonds and gemstones that the labs have received for scanning — which may work for tracking important stones but is not practical for the entire pipeline.
Verification that can happen in front of a customer is also important, and to that end, companies like Sarine, DiaDNA and Opsydia are developing viewers that clients can use at retail locations. However, cost is an issue; to work at scale, such systems need to be more affordable than they currently are.
The supply chain for diamonds, gemstones and jewelry is vast and fragmented. The trade needs to standardize traceability protocols, and stakeholders must collaborate with one another if they want to ensure that traceability is not just a marketing claim, but a verifiable reality.
Main image: A ring from Elhanati in 18-karat gold, featuring a traceable 5-carat Botswanamark diamond. (Elhanati)
