Future diamond or cabbage price?

Abstract According to recent foreign media reports, the diamond industry is currently dominated by a few powerful players, with De Beers being one of the most influential. The company controls nearly half of the global diamond mining and trading activities. Founded in the 19th century and headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, De Beers has long played a central role in shaping the diamond market. Diamonds themselves are a natural form of carbon, formed deep within the Earth under extreme heat and pressure over millions of years. In human culture, they have long symbolized wealth, power, and romance. However, with advances in technology, the price of diamonds is gradually decreasing. Modern production techniques now allow for the mass creation of synthetic diamonds, which are becoming more indistinguishable from their natural counterparts. This has created challenges in the market, where consumers must now rely on advanced tools like spectrometers to tell real diamonds from fake ones. Even top experts can no longer rely solely on visual inspection. While diamond mining still thrives in countries like South Africa, Australia, and Canada, the age of these gems dates back almost to the formation of the Earth itself. This means that many of the world’s richest diamond deposits are found in regions that were geologically stable billions of years ago. In the eyes of industry insiders, the rise of synthetic diamonds could potentially disrupt the entire market. Natural diamonds require extensive processing—cleaning, cutting, grading, and labeling—which makes them expensive, often costing around $7,000 per carat. In contrast, lab-grown diamonds can be produced at a fraction of the cost, sometimes just a few hundred dollars per carat. Moreover, the blending of natural and synthetic stones in the market has made it increasingly difficult to determine authenticity. In the long run, the development of lab-created diamonds is a natural outcome of scientific progress. As laser and manufacturing technologies continue to evolve, producing high-quality artificial diamonds will become even easier, leading to greater competition in the market. With their appearance and color rivaling that of natural stones, lab-grown diamonds may soon challenge traditional pricing models, making the distinction between “real” and “artificial” diamonds more blurred than ever before.