Dive Brief:

• IBM and members of the international jewelry community are giving diamonds the blockchain treatment through the TrustChain Initiative to track the "provenance of finished pieces" throughout the supply chain, according to IBM.   

• The project will run on the IBM Blockchain Platform using IBM's cloud. In an effort to promote and maintain "responsible sourcing, verification and governance" by third parties, jewelers including Asahi Refining and Helzberg Diamonds, are participating in the program, according to the announcement. UL, an independent third party verifier, will lead the sourcing process.

• TrustChain is the first collaboration between the jewelry industry and blockchain technologies, according to the website. Following results from the trial run with jewelry clients — as early as the end of 2018 — the open platform is expected to be accessible to more industry participants.

Dive Insight:

IBM can largely thank blockchain for giving it a boost in revenue growth for the first time in 22 quarters. The TrustChain Initiative is not the first blockchain partnership IBM has cultivated recently, and it won't be the last.

IBM is working to create better transparency in the supply chain with blockchain, through "cryptographic anchors" and edible ink. And the trend is growing.

Consumers are increasingly becoming more concerned with the ethics behind the products and brands they use. Transparency is starting to shape how customers interact with companies and therefore their buying habits.

Because transparency is rooted in the trustworthiness of a good or service, customers want to know what and who they are engaging with is ethically on par with their values.

To appease consumer concerns, companies across industries are adopting blockchain technologies to create transparency. In March, Starbucks announced its "bean to cup" blockchain project to trace their beans to reaffirm commitment to sustainable and ethically sourced coffee.