💎 Bling Bling Blockchain 💎

GM, GM!

You know how we break down the Web3 use cases every week in 4.3 minutes:

• 😰 The challenge

• 💡 The solution

• 👀 Take away for other industries

Have you ever thought that perhaps a carbon doesn’t really want to be a diamond and that it is just pressured into the whole thing?

🙃

😰 The challenge

Speaking of diamonds, what comes to your mind first?

I immediately think of

• illegal mines

• child labor

• polluting chemicals

• illegal businesses

• wars over land

• and the funding of mercenaries.

The term "blood diamonds" fits very well.

The diamond industry really does not have a good image.

On top of that, there are industrial diamonds that are passed off as the real thing.

💡 The solution

De Beers group, one of the largest diamond companies in the world, wants to address these issues.

They have developed the Tracr platform.

This platform tracks the entire life cycle of a diamond. From the source, through the trade and into the hands of the end consumer.

In this way, owners can be sure that they are dealing with genuine and clean diamonds.

The platform is based on several technologies:

• Machine Learning to analyze a diamond's unique characteristics and create a digital record that can store information about a diamond's authenticity and origin.

• IoT to connect the physical and digital worlds and enable the tracking of goods movements, improving supply chain transparency and efficiency.

• Blockchain to create a unique digital ID for each diamond, linked to information about its origin, characteristics and ownership history.

Unfortunately, there is no specific reference to the blockchain used on the site.

The first PoCs ran on Ethereum, with later job postings referring to Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric.

Since each company seems to get its own "sub-platform," my guess is that Hyperledger Fabric is the foundation.

The platform was launched in 2018, and after extensive testing, the go-ahead was given in 2022 to open it up to the entire diamond industry.

According to Tracr, it is possible to register 1 million new diamonds per week.

👀 Take away for other industries

Starting the first PoC in 2018 and testing for 4 years before the official launch, seems very long in these times.

Most companies wouldn’t gone this road.

To many are focusing on quick returns and quarterly numbers.

➡️ But to fully understand a new technology, you have to go the extra mile.

Another learning here: De Beers group wanted to create a solution for the whole industry.

In order to achieve this, this can’t be within their own group.

➡️ So they decided early on to create a separate company which operates the new platform, which eventually will become a standard for the industry. We will see, if the other players will use it.

Tracking and tracing will become big in nearly all industries, especially with luxury goods like diamonds, and of course CO2 tracking.

Do you know a good example of supply chain tracking?

Btw: I’m lucky, that I have a down to earth wife, wo don’t needs diamonds, so in my private life, I don’t have to think about this stuff. 😅

See you next week! ☀️

Florian