The technology might help track stolen goods and improve the Kimberley Process.
In his midterm report issued this summer, Kimberley Process chair Ahmed Bin Sulayem laid out an intriguing proposal: The certification scheme’s security could be enhanced with blockchain technology.
So far, the chair has not added to this statement. A spokesperson for the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre told JCK: “We’re still looking into the concept in a broad sense—with a view to understanding ourselves how it might work and how it might be applied specifically.”
To increase my insight on how blockchain might work for diamonds, and the KP in particular, I turned to Leanne Kemp (pictured), founder and CEO of Everledger, a London-based company that uses blockchain technology to safeguard diamond provenance, as well as Eric Schulte, tech person and interested industry observer.
Blockchain is the technology that underpins bitcoin. It is the “ledger” that records transactions in that crypto-currency. It is designed to make transactions (or data) more secure by recording the information in not just one location, but over a network of computers , making it tougher to tamper with.(For more on this, The Economist has a good explainer.)
For more information, watch this TEDx talk by Lorne Lantz, New Kids on the Blockchain
