New Diamond-Tracking Platform Issues Origin Certificates

Fancy-colored-diamond dealer Bruno Scarselli spent his downtime during Covid-19 taking online blockchain classes with the goal of producing a seamless system of tracing diamonds from the mine to the consumer.

The result is a platform he launched last month called Authentia.io, which not only provides a diamond’s provenance but also tracks its reports and other documentation and identifiers through a stone’s entire journey, he said. The new company will also produce its own certificates of origin and titles of ownership, which ensure transparency and traceability in the diamond industry, according to Scarselli.

“Our project is the only project that maps out a footprint of rough throughout the continents. You’ll know the entire life history from being a rough with the name of the certificate,” he told Rapaport News. “It’s about the product.”

The platform employs patented technology similar to blockchain designed to be compatible with other blockchains that trace a diamond’s origin. “It’s like a bridge that attaches itself to every blockchain,” he said.

The system identifies each diamond through a token inscribed in the gem, he added.

Most blockchain platforms can be used only by De Beers sightholders and diamond companies, Scarselli noted. Authentia.io will be available to everyone with a vested interest in the various financial exchanges a diamond undertakes.

“I am looking to license my patent,” he said. He plans to license his patent to “every retailer who wants to be the part of the system.”

Scarselli currently has 97 contracts with small mines in Africa, and he has opened an office in Kimberley, South Africa. Large mining operations could benefit from the platform, he continued.

“They have rough coming from Botswana, South Africa [and] other countries,” he said. “They have to aggregate all of the rough. Product aggregation is a huge problem for big-scale mining concerns. A patent like mine can show where each piece of rough comes from.”

Scarselli said he obtained a second patent that used a smartphone application where the device could scan the inscription on the diamond. This will allow retailers to see the rough stone from the beginning, which will include the origin mine — including country — the reports, and which lab processed the report.

There will be no charge for first-time Authentia users, Scarselli assured. “The second time we’ll figure it out,” he said. “I have a product no one else has and am looking forward to linking it throughout the industry.”

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Main image: Rough diamonds. (Shutterstock)