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Comment by mml | Hacker News Reader

they are perfect, without inclusions, bubbles etc. really the only way to differentiate them. ironically.

You can introduce artificial defects during the manufacturing process to subvert detection of authenticity.

Source: After reading this Wired article [1] ~15 years ago, myself and two friends tried to (unsuccessfully) put VC money together to commit to large amounts of manufactured diamonds for the consumer industry.

[1] https://www.wired.com/2003/09/diamond/

What went wrong?

No one thought it was viable considering the resources of the Da Beers cartel. In hindsight, they were right.

I still have a small block of manufactured diamond I had made with impurities (as a proof of concept) in a box in my closet. With age comes wisdom.

Well you fought the good fight. Thanks for trying! I sincerely hope someone brings down Da Beers

Could be the timing was wrong? I'd think that an online direct to consumer model could work now with focus on social media marketing. Worst case you get bought out by De Beers if you make headway, especially now they are getting in the consumer synthetic market themselves.

btw let me know if you'd be interested in collaborating on such a thing

Synthetic consumer diamonds is an interesting space, one that was actually explored by GE in the mid-late 90s. This article gave me flashbacks of "Straight from the Gut" by Jack Welch [1]... any chance you worked with that particular division? Even if not, it would be interesting to hear your story.

[1] https://books.google.com/books?id=2GrqeGCE544C&pg=PT142&dq=I...

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