Diamonds As Money?

I would like to invite those of you who may be interested to view this article and share your opinions. I for one, am a bit leery of this for the same reasons as Patrick Heller states in the piece. http://www.numismaticnews.net/artic...ent=969682_EDT_NUM-FRI170915&utm_medium=email

 

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Diamonds must be the new penny I guess? I always thought diamonds aren’t rare lol. They are just outrageously priced clear rocks lol

 

First thought was decreasing the speculative nature of it seems to defeat the purpose. The potential to make big bucks if it takes off is what has drawn a lot of people to them in the first place.

 

I have a feeling like Africa is going to get rich. Wish I could post something but it might sound political so I won’t.

 

2 problems with Diamonds backing a currency...

1. Diamonds are really only valuable because De Beers makes them valuable. They keep a very tight control on the industry.

2. Once someone releases a bunch of lab made diamonds with no marking features into the diamond market place and no one can tell the difference between the natural one and the lab one, what do you think is going to happen to the value of a diamond?

 

That's assuming that they could ever get to the point, but not only do they have to accomplish that they also have to do it in a profitable way for that to happen. Given how controlled the supply is there's fixes to that anyway

 

Using diamonds as money is an old topic.

It was an idea used in the 1951 film "The Day the Earth Stood Still".

A visitor arrives in Washington DC and recruits a local boy as a guide:


Local boy and tourist

The visitor shows the kid the money from "back home":


Diamonds in hand

It turns out not to be a good idea as he loses one and causes the kid and his mother to believe that they are dealing with a diamond smuggler.

 

I would think that diamonds as money would only become practical once gemstome quality pieces and be made CONSISTANTLY in size, color, and quality at a reasonable price. In other words they would need to be fungible. You are not going to be able to do that with natural diamonds, only artificial ones. Of course once you can do that the prices of the created diamonds should fall. (And if you can get large gemstone quality diamonds at a "low" price what would that do to the price of large natural gemstone? I mean if you can buy a 2 carat flawless round cut lab diamond for $500, why would you pay $20,000 for a 2 carat VS quality natural stone?)

 

I don't think this is about diamonds as money. It's about a diamond-backed cryptocurrency. Quite a difference.

 

I once thought that diamonds came out of the ground looking like that... until I saw rough diamonds being cut and polished

 

"cryptocurrency"?

Sounds like science fiction.

 

A very interesting read for sure, and thanks for sharing, in my opinion not
Sure if that would be something sustainable over time, just because it
Would take a long time to get that train up to speed, for me i like investments
That i can physically hold, not something that is out of the age of Flash Gordon
LOL

 

Don't say this to bitcoin-ers. It is not a fiction, but, a fact-ion for them.
What is its rate nowadays? 1 bitcoin = 4000 USD? It is already more valuable than any noncyrptocurrency in the World.

As for Diamond as Money. Why not. These eyes have seen Gold as Money. Logically, it is not different. And, backing a currency by such materials shows that that currency is not a trustable currency. And, as a fact, this is what has been happening in the reality. People don't have self-confidence, don't have confidence in their own product, the money, more concretely, the coin.

Ps: Hmm... While we talking here empty empty, OP, Tommy maybe laughing/teheeing now, he might have found a pocket of diamonds in a ruin.

 

They are already at this point.

 

Not the undetectable point. There's already a work around to it anyway

 

I'm telling you, lab made diamonds can be indistinguishable from a mined diamond already. It's not opinion, it's not conjecture. It's fact.

If you don't think they are undetectable, then what do you think about this article? You think they are lying? Just looking for clicks?

http://6abc.com/shopping/mined-vs-man-made-diamonds;-can-you-tell-the-difference/1985074/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdan...rupt-the-mined-diamond-industry/#6743e55af529

You can tell me they aren't undetectable. But they are. If a lab left off the the marking they put on it to show it was made in a lab, no one would ever know.

Edit: I'm not at all claiming that all lab made diamonds are indistinguishable from a real one. I am saying that if a lab wanted to, they could pass a lab made diamond off as a real one and no one would ever know because they have that capability.

 

That article explains this week's question for NN: are diamonds as currency a good idea. From that article it doesn't sound any different from buying a diamond ETF.

 

If you are really interested in natural diamonds vs. synthetics, you might like this video by the GIA ( for gems what PCGS is for coins), that is from Gemologyonline.com ,my co-best forum on their respective areas. The better part starts about 8 minutes into the video , and if you are impatient, they say yes , they can be separated, but the instrumentation costs and learning will be very high, so even the big jewelry firms will send to or other specialized labs, them rather than 'slab' it themselves. IMO. Jim

https://www.gia.edu/sites/Satellite...Detail&cid=1495254356495&pagename=GIA/Wrapper

 

One question: if it is going to take a super expert or a lab to determine if a diamond is natural or not, why would anyone think that diamonds should back any currency, crypto or not?

 

Same reason they think little bits of scrap metal and pieces of paper are real money. The would be called fiat diamonds.