Diamond jewellery major De Beers is bullish on the use of blockchain technology to enable both jewellery retailers and buyers to have information about the origin of the diamonds.

The De Beers group in May announced the use of the blockchain platform Tracr to address the demand for clients wanting to know more about the source of the diamond they are looking to buy. According to De Beers, the Tracr platform combines both distributed ledger technology as well as data security and privacy to ensure that data cannot be tampered with when the diamond progresses through the value chain.

De Beers said that the decentralised nature of the platform would ensure speed and scalability, with the ability to register one million diamonds a week on the platform. Addressing the De Beers forum in India, David Prager, executive vice-president and chief brand officer, said blockchain can be used to trace the entire journey of the diamond.

“Through the release of Tracr, we have the culmination of about four years of investment in blockchain technology. This will ultimately enable us to track not just the origin of every diamond we discovered through the value chain, but its impact as well,” said Prager, adding that the technology will also help De Beers and the jewellers to engage more meaningfully with the end-users.

Prager was also bullish on the recovery in diamond jewellery demand globally including in India. “The resilience the industry showed and in particular the resilience in India to make 2021 a banner year for the industry was remarkable. 2022 is also a strong year.

We see demand in the US as particularly strong. The US accounts for 52 per cent of the global demand. China has been going through a difficult time. But they are now starting to come out of lockdowns and we see demand starting to increase,” said Prager.

De Beers India managing director Sachin Jain was also optimistic about the growth prospects in India buoyed by the strong performance in the first half of 2022. Jain had earlier told The Telegraph that by the end of the calendar year the total number of exclusive stores is expected to reach 30.