Backed by the world’s leader in diamond mining and enabled by Everledger, the solution will empower WeChat users to buy jewelry with more transparency, security and confidence.

Alrosa, Tencent and Everledger are launching a new WeChat Mini Program e-commerce solution for Chinese retailers, demonstrating the power of blockchain technology to enable the purchase of diamonds with full transparency of their origin, characteristics and ownership history. Created by the world’s largest diamond producer, Alrosa, and independent technology company, Everledger, this new solution will put transparent and secure diamond information at the fingertips of potentially a billion active WeChat users. It is also the first product to capitalize on the synergy between Everledger and their new investor, Tencent, the creator of WeChat – one of the world’s largest social media and e-commerce platforms.

The WeChat Mini Program pilot will showcase diamonds from Alrosa, enabling full traceability from mine to consumer. It will be offered as a white label API for jewelry manufacturers and retailers in China who wish to offer consumers more innovative and insightful stories about their products and their brand.

Consumers will be offered unprecedented levels of transparency and trust regarding the origin, characteristics and authenticity of the jewelry they purchase. Using the WeChat Mini Program on their smartphone, consumers can check an individual diamond’s full provenance and certificate information, purchase the diamond in the Mini Program using WeChat Pay, and also confirm its ownership through the Everledger blockchain platform

This allows for a better informed and more secure purchase, as well as a more seamless online-to-offline user experience. By establishing new touch points between consumers, jewelry manufacturers and retailers, the Mini Program will encourage brand differentiation in the highly competitive Chinese luxury market.

The world leader in diamond mining, Alrosa, will provide information about their diamonds extracted in Russia, thus allowing consumers to know the exact origin of each stone and ascertain its sustainable and ethical footprint. Last month, Alrosa launched its independent sustainability benchmark report, demonstrating the company’s leading position in responsible sourcing on the global market.

Alrosa’s commitment to community-focused and environmental mining – with a particular emphasis on championing the role of women in the workforce – reflects Everledger’s own pioneering mission to improve sustainability throughout value chains. Everledger harnesses a symphony of technologies, including blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things and nanotechnology to make asset provenance ever more accessible and transparent.

Statements

Pavel Vinikhin, director of Diamonds of Alrosa, the company’s polishing branch, commented: “We are delighted to support this WeChat project Mini Program with Everledger, as it reinforces our pursuit for sustainable mining and transparent supply chain information. Chinese consumers will be certain of the origin of their diamonds. We believe demonstrating full provenance of our diamonds on the most popular social media platform will help us to further strengthen our sales base in China.”

Evgeny Gokhberg, Everledger‘s director in Europe, notes: “This is a groundbreaking initiative with the titans of the diamond and internet industries. We’re glad to partner with Alrosa, as we share the same goal of enabling more transparency to the market. By providing 100% certainty of a diamond’s origin and journey to the consumer, in an easy-to-experience online platform such as WeChat, we are confident that this innovation will set a new standard when it comes to traceability and responsible business practices.”

Commenting on the importance of this pilot for Everledger’s expansion, Chris Taylor, Chief Operating Officer, said: “This exciting development mobilises our strong partnerships with Tencent and Alrosa to bring provenance and authenticity of diamonds to a new level of transparency in China. Making this information available to consumers’ fingertips via WeChat enables them to be sure about the source and the credentials of each item being purchased.”

Leanne Kemp, founder and CEO of Everledger, adds: “This pioneering collaboration is exactly why we launched Everledger – and it shows how far we have come since our humble beginnings in 2015. Our blockchain and IoT solutions will enable key stakeholders in the jewelry industry to bring secure and reputable information to consumers in China and beyond. The WeChat Mini Program delivers on our scalable vision for more transparent, frictionless, and sustainable value chains, providing a new benchmark for customer focus and transparency in the diamond industry.”