Democratizing diamond investment with Hedera

Problem

Despite diamonds representing $1.2 trillion in global supply, only 1% is allocated for investment. Traditional diamond investing requires specialized expertise, significant capital, secure storage, and faces liquidity challenges with opaque pricing mechanisms that deter widespread participation.

Solution

Diamond Standard creates mathematically standardized collections of diamonds packaged as Coins and Bars, tokenized on Hedera using Hedera Token Service (HTS). Each token represents verified physical diamonds with uniform value, enabling fractional ownership, instant trading, and transparent pricing without requiring physical possession or expertise.

We chose to build on Hedera because its speed, security, and transparency were essential to our vision of democratizing access to diamonds as an asset class.

Rajiv Sohal

CTO

Tokenizing a trillion-dollar diamond investment opportunity

Diamond Standard has revolutionized diamond investment by creating the first fungible, standardized diamond commodity on Hedera. The company developed a highly sophisticated, regulator-reviewed, and fully autonomous process for taking physical diamonds from source to tokenization with complete transparency at every stage using a variety of Hedera network services. Their AI-powered system evaluates diamonds from a global vendor network, including smaller suppliers previously excluded from larger markets, before certification by the International Gemological Institute.

The tokenization process transforms these certified diamonds into two standardized products: Diamond Standard Coins and Bars. Each container includes an embedded chip storing a “Commodity Token” that enables blockchain tokenization. Using Hedera Token Service, each Diamond Commodity Token truly represents either a Diamond Standard Coin or Diamond Standard Bar with ownership directly linked to the physical diamonds. This standardization solves the fundamental challenge of diamond trading – creating fungible assets from traditionally unique items.

Migration from Ethereum to Hedera

Diamond Standard’s migration from Ethereum to Hedera enhances the security, transparency, and environmental sustainability of diamond investments. Hedera processes transactions swiftly, handling over 10,000 transactions per second with transaction costs under $0.01, making it ideal for commodity trading. Hedera Consensus Service creates immutable transaction records, ensuring complete transparency for all Diamond Commodity Token activities.

Why Hedera

Diamond Standard’s commitment to environmental responsibility aligned perfectly with Hedera’s carbon-negative operations, reflecting shared ESG values. This partnership has already generated impressive results: $50 million in assets currently trading on Hedera with $2.5 million in tokenized diamond trading volume. 

Looking forward, Diamond Standard launched Bitcarbon, a fractional ownership token where one Coin equals 5,000 Bitcarbon tokens and one Bar equals 50,000 tokens, further democratizing access. Operating under Bermuda’s Digital Asset Business Act with Deloitte auditing, Diamond Standard has successfully unlocked diamond investment potential for a broader market previously excluded from this trillion-dollar asset class.