De Beers posted a US$1.6 billion loss in 2024. The company that invented the modern diamond engagement ring — that told an entire generation that "a diamond is forever" — lost US$1.6 billion in a single year. Its parent company, Anglo American, announced plans to sell or demerge De Beers entirely.
The reason is not complicated. Lab-grown diamonds — chemically and optically identical to mined diamonds, grown in a reactor over a few weeks rather than formed over billions of years underground — have destroyed the commodity diamond market. A 1-carat lab-grown round brilliant that cost US$4,000 in 2020 now retails for under US$800. The production cost is approaching US$100 per carat at scale.
The question for investors is not whether this disruption is real. It is demonstrably real. The question is: what survives it? And the answer — visible clearly for anyone willing to look — is that a specific segment of the natural diamond market is not just surviving but aggressively appreciating. The bifurcation is complete, and the two markets are now effectively disconnected.
The global diamond industry was worth approximately US$89 billion in annual sales at peak in 2022. By 2025, De Beers estimates the market for natural diamonds contracted by roughly 25–30% in volume terms while prices fell across most categories. Polished diamond prices as tracked by the IDEX index fell approximately 30% between early 2022 and late 2024 for standard round and fancy-cut stones.
This is a permanent repricing, not a cycle. When production costs for a comparable product collapse below US$100 per carat, the standard commodity version of any product cannot maintain luxury pricing. The same disruption pattern played out in solar panels (Chinese manufacturing destroyed crystalline silicon economics), in flat-screen TVs (LCD manufacturing economics collapsed), and in synthetic rubies and sapphires (lab-grown versions now cost less than US$1 per carat versus US$300–5,000 for naturals).
What does not collapse: rarity backed by geological scarcity and documented provenance. There will never be another Argyle mine. There are no lab-grown pink diamonds that command institutional respect. And fancy colored diamonds — the segment that actually holds value — are operating under a completely different supply dynamic than the white diamond commodity market.
The lab-grown diamond market share of US jewelry sales was less than 1% in 2017. By 2023, it had crossed 17% by unit volume. In the engagement ring segment — historically De Beers' core commercial engine — lab-grown has exceeded 50% market share by unit volume in the US as of 2024 (data from Tenoris, a jewelry market intelligence firm).
HPHT (High Pressure High Temperature) and CVD (Chemical Vapor Deposition) reactors can now grow Type IIa diamonds — the purest, highest optical quality classification — in 10–14 days. The same material type historically found only in rare Golconda diamonds from India or Cullinan-type South African deposits now costs US$80–120 to produce in a laboratory.
The major lab-grown producers are largely based in India (Surat, the global cutting and polishing capital, has industrialized CVD production), China, and increasingly the US. They are producing at costs that make the commodity white diamond market structurally uncompetitive for natural miners.
De Beers' response — launching its own lab-grown brand, Lightbox, selling lab-grown diamonds at US$800/carat — was an acknowledgment that the commodity market was lost. It did not save the parent company.
What this means for you: if you own standard white diamonds as an investment, you have a problem. The resale value of commodity round brilliants, princess cuts, and standard fancy cuts has deteriorated and will not recover. The disruption is permanent. The holder of a US$10,000 1-carat D/VVS1 round brilliant in 2020 is looking at a US$5,000–6,000 resale market today and a lower one tomorrow as lab-grown quality continues improving.
Three categories of natural diamonds are structurally immune to lab-grown disruption. The logic is the same in each case: laboratory production cannot replicate geological origin provenance, institutional auction record, or physical impossibility of production.
Fancy Colored Diamonds: Pink, Blue, Red, Green
The Argyle mine in Western Australia — operated by Rio Tinto — produced approximately 90% of the world's natural pink diamonds from its opening in 1983 until its closure in November 2020. After Argyle closed, it was not replaced. There is no other mine on Earth producing pink diamonds in meaningful volume. The supply of natural pink diamonds is now fixed — the existing stock held in private hands and vaults is all there will ever be at Argyle-certified quality.
Argyle pink diamond prices have increased approximately 300–400% since 2020 closure, according to the Argyle Pink Diamond Index tracked by specialist dealers. A 1-carat Argyle Fancy Vivid Pink — which sold for around US$80,000–120,000 in 2018 — now commands US$300,000–500,000+ at auction. Christie's and Sotheby's consistently achieve record prices in the fancy colored diamond category.
Natural blue diamonds (rare, primarily from Cullinan mine, South Africa), green diamonds (predominantly from the Golconda region and Russian deposits), and red diamonds (the rarest of all — fewer than 30 true fancy red diamonds above 1 carat are known to exist) operate in a similar rarity framework.
GIA-Certified Historically Significant Stones
Large format diamonds above 10 carats with GIA or HRD provenance certification and established auction history form a separate market segment that institutional collectors and family offices treat as hard assets. The Oppenheimer Blue (14.62 carats, fancy vivid blue) sold for US$57.5 million at Christie's Geneva in 2016. The Pink Star (59.60 carats, fancy vivid pink) sold for US$71.2 million at Sotheby's in 2017. These stones do not compete with US$800 lab-grown engagement rings.
Indian and South African Historical Stones
Golconda diamonds — named for the Indian sultanate region that produced most of the world's known great diamonds before Brazilian and South African deposits were discovered — have a specific provenance premium. The Koh-i-Noor, the Hope Diamond, the Regent Diamond all originated from Golconda. Modern market instruments cannot replicate this geological and historical narrative.
For the EM investor in Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai, or the Gulf, the fancy colored diamond market intersects with a broader store-of-value trend among wealthy Asian and Middle Eastern families who have historically preferred portable, physically held assets over financial instruments.
India remains the world's largest diamond processing nation (Surat processes approximately 90% of the world's diamonds by volume), giving Indian HNWIs informational advantage in sourcing quality stones. China, Hong Kong, and Singapore have seen growing secondary market activity in fancy colored diamonds at the US$50,000–500,000 price tier — accessible to HNWIs rather than only to billionaires.
The practical access points: Langerman Diamonds (Brussels/Antwerp, specializing in natural fancy colors), Leibish & Co. (New York/Tel Aviv, strong online presence in the HNWI segment), and the major auction houses — Christie's, Sotheby's, Bonhams — all hold regular Hong Kong and Singapore sales where fancy colored diamonds are offered. The Singapore FreePort can store physical diamonds alongside gold and watches with full insurance and provenance documentation.
For Gulf investors: Dubai's DMCC (Dubai Multi Commodities Centre) has established a rough diamond trading license framework that makes Dubai an important transit and trading hub for East African and South African production. The Gulf HNWI market's appetite for rare stones has increased significantly since 2020.
The fancy colored diamond bull case has two vulnerabilities. First, liquidity is genuinely limited. Unlike gold or a listed ETF, selling a US$300,000 pink diamond requires either an auction house (which charges 10–15% buyer's and seller's premiums), a specialist dealer (who will bid below market to protect their margin), or a direct private sale that may take months to execute. These are illiquid assets by institutional standards.
Second, provenance verification is not foolproof. Lab-grown fancy colored diamonds (pink, blue, yellow) are increasingly being produced at sufficient quality to challenge detection without specialist GIA spectroscopic testing. The risk of misrepresentation in informal secondary market transactions — particularly online — is real. Any purchase above US$10,000 should involve independent GIA certification review before transaction completion.
The mitigation: auction house provenance, GIA Type IIa spectroscopic classification, and Argyle-specific documentation (Argyle issued unique provenance certificates with digital records) address most verification risk for institutional-grade transactions.
The diamond market in 2026 is not one market. It is two completely disconnected markets wearing the same name:
The commodity market: white diamonds, standard cuts, available in lab-grown form at a fraction of the price. This market has structurally revalued downward and will not recover. Don't hold commodity white diamonds as investment assets.
The rarity market: fancy colored naturals (particularly Argyle pinks and natural blues), historically significant large stones, and Golconda-provenance material. This market is supply-constrained in a terminal sense — the mine is closed, the geological deposits are finite — and has seen 300–400% appreciation since 2020 while the commodity market collapsed 30%.
The bifurcation will widen, not narrow. As lab-grown production costs fall toward US$50/carat and lab-grown quality continues improving, the commodity white diamond market faces further structural pressure. The fancy colored rarity market, insulated by genuine scarcity and non-replicable provenance, continues to attract family office and HNWI capital seeking portable, non-correlated store-of-value assets.
The trade is simple to describe, harder to execute: identify the rarity, verify the provenance, pay the illiquidity premium knowingly, and hold. The fundamentals are not complicated. The access is.