Alrosa and Everledger introduce programme for blockchain-enabled diamonds
Published by Elizabeth Cope,
Editorial Assistant
Global Mining Review,
Alrosa and Everledger are introducing a WeChat Mini Programme to Chinese retailers, demonstrating the ability of blockchain technology to enable the purchase of diamonds with transparency of their origin, characteristics and ownership history.
Created by diamond producer Alrosa and technology company Everledger, the programme pilot aims to provide transparent and secure diamond information for potentially a billion active WeChat users. It is also the first product to capitalise on the synergy between Everledger and their new investor, Tencent, which operates the WeChat social platform.
The programme pilot will showcase diamonds from Alrosa, enabling full traceability from mine to consumer. It will be offered as a white label API for jewellery manufacturers and retailers in China who wish to offer consumers more innovative and insightful stories about its products and their brand. This could enable a better informed and more secure purchase for consumers, as well as an improved online to offline user experience. By enabling new touch points between consumers, jewellery manufacturers and retailers, the progamme could encourage brand differentiation in the competitive Chinese luxury market.
Consumers will be offered transparency around the origin, characteristics and authenticity of the jewellery they purchase. Using the program on their smartphones, consumers can check an individual diamond’s full provenance and unique certificate information, purchase the diamond in the programme using WeChat Pay, and also attest its ownership through the Everledger blockchain platform.
A prominent diamond mining company, Alrosa will provide information from their diamonds extracted in Russia, thus enabling consumers to know the origin of each stone, as well as its sustainable and ethical footprint. The company has recently launched its independent sustainability benchmark report, demonstrating its position in responsible sourcing within the global market.
Pavel Vinikhin, Head of ‘Diamonds of Alrosa’, commented: “We are delighted to support this WeChat Mini Program with Everledger, as it reinforces our pursuit for sustainable mining and transparent supply chain information. Chinese consumers will be certain of the origin of their diamonds. We believe demonstrating full provenance of our diamonds on the most popular social media platform will help us to further strengthen our sales base in China.”
Evgeny Gokhberg, Head of Europe at Everledger, notes: “This is just the beginning of a much broader roll out with our partner Alrosa, as we share the same goal of enabling more transparency to the market. By providing 100% certainty of a diamond’s origin and journey to the consumer in an easy to experience online platform such as WeChat, we are confident that this innovation will set a new standard when it comes to traceability and responsible business practices.”
Read the article online at: https://www.globalminingreview.com/product-news/17122019/alrosa-and-everledger-introduce-program-for-blockchain-enabled-diamonds/
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