New World is entering the lab-grown diamond market at a time when experts say it's poised for growth.

In its Revised Jewelry Guides issued late last July, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission removed earlier references to the need for diamonds to be a "natural" mineral, meaning a diamond is a diamond, whether it comes out of the ground or is cultivated in a lab like a cultured pearl, so long as it is "pure carbon crystallized in the isometric system" like a natural diamond.

Many believe the move will level the playing field between mined and lab-grown diamonds.

"It's next to impossible" to tell the difference between a mined diamond and a lab-grown diamond when it comes to the four Cs of cut, color, clarity and carat and the fifth C of certification, Panis said, noting New World Diamonds are certified by independent labs.

The FTC's new guidelines, which took effect in mid-August, have given consumers a boost of confidence that lab-grown diamonds are diamonds, he said. NewWorldDiamonds.com is seeing tens of thousands of visitors a month.

But the market is contracting beneath the surface.

The prices for gem-quality lab-created diamonds sold as jewelry have dropped 30-40 percent over the last 2.5 years, Paul Zimnisky, a New York-based, independent diamond and mining analyst and consultant, wrote in an August report.

Last May, prior to the FTC's revised guidelines, international diamond mining and retailer giant De Beers Group announced its plan to enter the lab-grown diamond space and in September began offering its lab-grown diamond jewelry to consumers at an estimated 65 percent to 80 percent discount. It's a strategy that's working to bring the price of lab-grown diamonds down, according to Reuters.

But Zimnisky is forecasting growth for the market, driven by cost-efficiency gains tied to continued advances in lab-grown diamond production technologies and dwindling supplies of natural diamonds.

While natural diamonds currently represent more than 95 percent of the diamond jewelry market, the annual supply of natural diamonds is forecast to decline over the next four years, Zimnisky said.

He estimated the lab-grown diamond jewelry market at $1.9 billion today, with gem-quality, lab-created diamond production of diamonds for jewelry now exceeding 1.5 million carats of polished diamonds annually.

And heforecast 22 percent growth annually to $5.2 billion by 2023 and $14.9 billion by 2035.

The numbers differ, but New York-based strategic market research company Research Nester is also forecasting growth for the market.

It valued the market of lab-grown diamonds at $16.2 billion in 2015 and estimated its future growth at a compound annual growth rate of 7.4 percent between 2016 and 2023, reaching $27.6 billion in 2023.

By contrast, the mined diamond market saw 2 percent growth in 2017 to $82 billion, according to the De Beers Group Diamond Insight Report 2018.