Using innovative technological solutions, CEDEX wants to transform the current diamond industry, making diamonds a transparent and fungible investment asset.

Diamonds are beautiful and precious gemstones whose prices continue to grow each year because of the rising scarcity. According to Frost & Sullivan, the gap between diamond demand and supply will reach 41 million carats by 2022 and 278 million carats by 2050.

Despite high consumer demand, which amounts to more than 95%, investment demand for these gemstones is still less than 5%. Although being a potentially excellent investment tool, a number of factors have been keeping investors from putting their money into diamonds.

First of all, the market lacks transparency, including C2C trading platforms and transparent pricing. This makes it difficult for non-professionals to understand the actual diamond price. Unlike other commodities like gold, platinum or silver, diamonds are not fungible, what means one carat of diamond is not equal to another carat.

Due to the lack of liquidity, diamonds are generally sold to end consumers in a one-sided transaction. This marketplace structure makes it is impossible for people to resell their stones at a fair price. Instead, they can sell them only at a significant loss, which often hits 50%.

The new online diamond exchange, CEDEX (CErtified Blockchain Based Diamond EXchange), aims to change today’s diamond industry by overcoming these obstacles. With the use of the blockchain technology, the platform will provide a first transparent and open marketplace to allow users invest in diamonds as a new financial asset class.

CEDEX aims to connect main diamond supply sources, such as dealers and private holders, with general investors and cryptocurrency owners.

“The ultimate objective of the global web site cedex.com is to bridge the gap between the traditional diamond industry and the innovative financial markets. The platform envisions bringing together diamond holders who want to liquidate their holdings and investors looking to diversify or hedge their investment portfolio to include diamonds as an investment asset and doing so in a secure and transparent way,” the whitepaper reads.

To rank diamonds on the exchange, CEDEX has developed a proprietary machine-learning algorithm, called DEX, which combines diamond financial indexes data, gemological data, and global inventory data. The service will enable people without any expertise to securely trade in diamonds.

To support the exchange’s further development, the team is going to launch a crowdsale on January 12, 2018. The majority of funds raised from the sale of its CEDEX Coins will be used to market the platform and to get necessary licensing and regulation in different locales.

CEDEX is a joint project between brokerage group TechFinancials and private banking expert Saar Levi who teamed up last month to develop a revolutionary platform for diamond trading. To contribute to the development of the platform, TechFinancials, which owns 90% of the venture, is providing initial funding of $400,000 in the form of an unsecured interest-free loan. Besides, it is going to assist developers by providing its expertise and technical development services on a fee-for-service basis.