Nobody can say where a natural diamond came from. That question has been put to this industry for a long time, and technology and regulation are now opening a way through it.
To be clear at the outset, we work with lab grown diamonds. Even so, as part of the same industry, we wanted to report what is happening in the natural world as accurately and as neutrally as we can. Has origin really become traceable. We look at the mechanism and its limits through the facts.
This article in thirty seconds
The weakness of the natural diamond is that its origin cannot be followed. The cause lies in a long trade route that crosses borders many times.
Three technologies are now filling that gap. Tracr keeps the record, Sarine takes the fingerprint, and GIA provides the verification.
This is not a case of everything becoming transparent. It is a natural diamond that can be verified only when three conditions are met.
Four figures on the natural diamond
country is Russia
one Indian city
on the ledger
G7 requires origin checks
Why origin cannot be followed
The answer lies in the length of one stone's journey. A natural diamond becomes jewelry through three stages, mining, polishing, and setting, and the settings for those stages are scattered across the world [1][2][3].
If the record breaks anywhere along this long journey, the origin is lost
The greatest weakness this structure produces is that stones from Russia, which is under international sanctions and is the largest producer by volume, can move through other routes under a false origin.
What it takes to make a natural stone traceable
There are two roads. One is to inspect the rough with your own eyes immediately after mining and buy it there. It looks certain, but the mines that permit this tend to be the loosely managed ones, which brings a risk of unrecorded stones being mixed in. Volume cannot be secured either.
The workable answer is the other road, tracking by technology. The shape and the characteristics of a stone are registered digitally while it is still rough, and every stage of the journey that follows is recorded. Three things support that system.
Tracr | keeps the record
- A blockchain ledger developed by De Beers, the largest company in the industry
- More than 5 million rough stones have already been registered
- In May 2026 GIA took a 30% stake, turning it from one company's system into shared industry infrastructure [4]
Sarine | provides the proof
- Maps the inclusions inside a stone precisely in three dimensions
- Even when the rough is cut away and changes form, the internal fingerprint does not change
- It demonstrates through data that the stone in front of you is the rough that was registered [5]
GIA, the Gemological Institute of America | supplies the verification
- No scientifically established method exists for naming the origin of a finished polished stone [6]
- The chemical differences between sources are very small in a diamond
- So GIA reads the unbroken record from the rough rather than the stone itself
GIA therefore reads the record rather than the stone. The rough is scanned at the outset and matched against the stone cut from it. The credibility of an origin rests on an unbroken record that begins with the rough. The three technologies started working together in 2023, and for a stone whose record is continuous, the level now reached can fairly be called a natural diamond with verifiable origin [4][5][6].
Even so, the gaps remain
To put it honestly, this system is not a finished one. Three gaps remain.
① Stones mixed in before the ledger. Between the moment a stone is dug out and the moment it is registered on the ledger, there is a gap in time and in place. The chance that an unrecorded stone slips in during that interval is not zero. There are also mines that take no part in the system at all.
② Swapped paperwork. Even when the documents are all in order, the possibility remains that they belong to a different stone. Matching the stone received against the registered data will expose that, but only for a stone that was registered in the first place [5].
③ A buyer cannot verify it all the way. Looking up a report number and checking an inscription are within a buyer's reach. Seeing through a skillful substitution, though, is not realistic for an individual. So the question comes back in the end to where you buy and whom you trust. That is why the standing of a store carries more weight, not less, in an age of transparency.
What the G7 rules changed
| Period | What happened | What it meant |
|---|---|---|
| Through 2023 | Paper certificates under the Kimberley Process were the norm. False origin was a structural problem [8] | The era of the doubtful natural stone |
| 2024 | The G7 banned Russian stones in stages. Direct imports in January, third country routes in March, and stones of 0.5ct and above in September [7] | A political cordon closing off the gray stones |
| 2023 to 2025 | Data sharing between Tracr, Sarine, and GIA widened [4][5][6] | The provable natural stone took shape |
| 2026 | Origin confirmation became mandatory for polished stones of 0.5ct and above, though the use of digital tracking remains voluntary [7] | A step forward, and still under way |
What deserves attention is that this shift is under way rather than complete. Mandatory digital tracking has been postponed again and again, and Russian stones continue to flow into markets outside the G7 [7].
How ANNA DIAMOND reads it
Transparency in the natural diamond is not a matter of everything having become transparent. It is that a stone meeting three conditions is becoming possible to verify. That, as we understand it, is the accurate position in 2026.
Greater transparency across the industry also works in our favor. A natural stone that can speak honestly about where it came from, and a lab grown diamond whose origin is clear from the start. It is in a market where both stand side by side on their own honesty that the value of a stone is conveyed properly. So we look toward the opening up of the natural world with expectation, and we support it, as part of the same industry.
The wider movement of the market is covered in Diamond Industry Report Vol.1, and the differences between natural and lab grown in this article.
Frequently asked questions
Q. Has the origin of a natural diamond really become knowable.
For a stone that carries all three records, from Tracr, Sarine, and GIA, the origin is becoming confirmable through data. Stones without the full set are still the majority. The accurate answer is not that everything has become knowable, but that a stone with the full set can be known.
Q. Are Russian diamonds regulated in Japan as well.
Yes. As a member of the G7, Japan has been restricting imports of Russian stones in stages since 2024. From 2026, confirmation of where a stone was mined is required for stones of 0.5 carat and above.
Q. Why does ANNA DIAMOND not speak against natural diamonds.
Because a natural stone has its own appeal and its own story, and because the work of opening the trade up is progressing steadily. Rather than ranking one above the other, we report the value and the difficulties of each accurately, and offer the lab grown diamond, whose origin is clear, as a new option.
We could not find anything in Japanese that gave an overall view of where the diamond supply chain stands today, so we researched the current information ourselves and put it together through repeated conversations inside and outside the industry. The industry moves daily. If you notice anything, please tell us. For non commercial purposes, reproduction and quotation are welcome as long as the source URL is given.
[1] Share of production by country in 2024, Kimberley Process statistics (rough-polished.expert, 2025)
[2] Dubai becomes the largest rough trading hub in the world, Rapaport and DMCC announcements (GJEPC Solitaire)
[3] About 90% of polishing takes place in Surat, India, Natural Diamond Council
[4] Tracr, more than 5 million stones registered and a 30% stake taken by GIA in May 2026, De Beers Group and GIA
[5] Sarine Diamond Journey and its link with Tracr, from 2023, De Beers Group
[6] GIA Diamond Origin Report, identifying origin from a polished stone alone is not possible at present, GIA and Gems & Gemology, Fall 2022
[7] Timeline of the G7 sanctions and the postponement of the mandate, Antwerp World Diamond Centre and National Jeweler (2025)
[8] Structural limits of the Kimberley Process, AIDI (2025) and KP Civil Society Coalition (2025)
Written and researched by Kento Tsuchiya (Breval Inc.) / Edited by the ANNA DIAMOND editorial team
Related reading
The differences between a lab grown and a natural diamond
Five differences in price, rarity, and reports
Which fields of a report to read, and in what order
Lab grown diamonds explained in diagrams
The basics, from how they come about to where they fall short