Dubai, UAE, May 07, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- (via Blockchain Wire) - Icecap, LLC, the first company to offer investment-grade diamonds via NFT technology, announced today the launch of tokenized “Icecap Collectibles,” a selection of high-end natural and rare colored diamonds, plus unique finished jewelry pieces. Initial offerings will include an intense red diamond valued at approximately $3 million USD.
The announcement came during Icecap’s prestigious launch event held at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in the Dubai International Financial Center, following the company’s recent relocation of its headquarters to Dubai.
Non-Fungible Tokens, or NFTs, are blockchain-based tokens which document ownership of real world or virtual world assets. They recently gained worldwide attention in March when an NFT representing ownership of a piece of digital art was sold by Christie’s for $69 million. As blockchain tokens, once sold they can move efficiently between buyers/sellers for trading purposes on NFT exchanges.
“NFT technology has opened up diamonds as an asset class for diversification,” explained Jacques Voorhees, CEO. “Diamonds typically out-perform inflation, but now with NFT technology diamonds can be bought, sold, and traded almost as efficiently as gold and silver. Thanks to NFTs, we might say the world’s hardest asset is now liquid.”
Icecap is the brainchild of the father/son team of Jacques Voorhees, who revolutionized the diamond industry in the 1980’s by introducing online trading technology via Polygon, and Erik Voorhees, the well-known bitcoin advocate and founder of ShapeShift.
“Interest in diamonds as an investment goes back over a thousand years,” continued Voorhees. “But diamonds are not fungible—each one is unique. The technology of non-fungible tokens now makes it easy to trade this asset class without the friction of having to track the physical product itself—which is kept secure, vaulted, and insured.”
Icecap’s diamond tokens are traded on the world’s largest NFT exchange, OpenSea.io. A buyer can hold the token as an investment, sell the token to liquidate, or redeem the token and take delivery of the physical diamond itself—which can later be re-tokenized if desired.
Icecap’s decision to relocate from the United States to Dubai was an easy one, according to Voorhees. “In the last twelve months, Dubai has become the primary trading center for diamonds globally. And the UAE is a global leader in having a stable and well-evolved regulatory framework for the trading of blockchain assets. Dubai in general, and the DMCC free-zone, in particular, is a natural home for a company that combines diamonds with NFT trading.”
Icecap’s new line of diamond collectibles are targeted to those who value rarity and uniqueness over liquidity. The Company’s “investment grade” diamonds, by contrast, are lower price point, less unique, but highly liquid. “There’s a market for both,” added Voorhees. “And NFT technology is ideally suited to both.”
For more information on Icecap, please visit https://icecap.diamonds/. To visit the OpenSea marketplace directly, go to https://opensea.io/assets/icecap-diamonds.
About Icecap
Icecap, LLC, which opened for business in 2020, is the first company to use the ERC721 Non-Fungible Token (NFT) standard to provide a revolutionary way to buy and sell diamonds. By making the tokens tradeable, while the diamond is kept in a secure vault (redeemable at any time), the normal friction for diamond investors and collectors is removed. www.icecap.diamonds
About OpenSea
OpenSea was founded in 2017 and is today the largest NFT marketplace, representing both digital and real-word assets. www.OpenSea.io