Lab-Grown Diamonds vs Natural Diamonds: How De Beers Lost More Than $16 Billion

By Magnatefall Team · Published October 21, 2026 · Last updated October 21, 2026

Lab-grown diamonds vs natural diamonds comes down to this: they are the same material, but not the same market. A lab-grown diamond is real diamond, with the same chemistry and sparkle. It now costs a small fraction of a mined stone. That price gap helped break the most famous monopoly in luxury goods.

De Beers was taken private in 2001 in a deal that valued it at about $17.6 billion. In 2026, its owner, Anglo American, has been in talks to sell it for about $1 billion, Bloomberg reported. Here is what lab-grown diamonds are, what they cost, whether they hold value, and how they helped erase more than $16 billion from De Beers.

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What Are Lab-Grown Diamonds?

A lab-grown diamond is a diamond made by people instead of by the Earth. It is pure carbon arranged in the same crystal structure as a mined diamond. It isn’t a coating, a glass copy or a cubic zirconia. It is the same substance, grown in weeks instead of over billions of years.

There are two main methods. HPHT, short for high pressure, high temperature, recreates the crushing heat and pressure deep underground inside a press. CVD, or chemical vapor deposition, grows a diamond layer by layer from carbon-rich gas inside a vacuum chamber. Both produce rough crystals that are then cut and polished exactly like mined stones.

India and China are now the largest producers, and the output has grown enormously. Analyst Paul Zimnisky has estimated that lab-grown stones make up around a third of the global diamond jewelry market.

Are Lab-Grown Diamonds Real?

Yes. In 2018, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission updated its Jewelry Guides and removed the word “natural” from its definition of a diamond. Under those guides, a lab-grown diamond is a diamond. But sellers must say clearly that it was made in a lab, with terms such as “laboratory-grown” or “laboratory-created.”

Major gem labs, including the Gemological Institute of America, grade lab-grown diamonds. Many lab-grown stones also carry a tiny laser inscription on the girdle identifying them as grown.

What lab-grown diamonds are not is rare. That is the whole debate in one word. A natural diamond’s value has always rested on scarcity and a story. A lab diamond’s value rests on the cost of making it, and that cost keeps falling.

Can a jeweler tell them apart? Not by looking. Under a normal loupe, a well-cut lab-grown stone and a mined one look the same. Gem labs use spectroscopy and other specialized instruments that read tiny differences in growth patterns and trace elements. That is why a grading report from a recognized lab matters so much. Whichever stone you buy, ask for one.

Lab-Created Diamonds vs Real Diamonds: The Differences That Matter

“Lab-created” and “real” are not opposites, even though people often search for them that way. The useful comparison is lab-grown versus mined. Here is how they line up.

Feature	Lab-grown diamond	Natural diamond
Chemical makeup	Pure carbon, diamond crystal structure	Pure carbon, diamond crystal structure
Appearance	Same sparkle and hardness; looks identical to the naked eye	Same sparkle and hardness; looks identical to the naked eye
Origin	Grown in weeks by HPHT or CVD	Formed underground over billions of years and mined
Price per carat (1 ct, early 2025 estimate)	About $845	About $3,895
Resale value	Very limited; often little to no secondary market	Below retail, but an established resale market exists
Environmental cost	Depends heavily on the energy used to grow it	Depends on the mine; involves moving large amounts of earth
Disclosure	Must be disclosed as lab-grown in the U.S.	Sold as natural or mined

The price figures above are estimates from analyst Paul Zimnisky for a generic one-carat round stone, as reported in March 2025. Retail prices vary widely by quality and seller.

Lab-Grown Diamonds vs Moissanite vs Cubic Zirconia

A lab-grown diamond is a real diamond. Moissanite and cubic zirconia are not. They are simulants that only look like diamonds, and they are made of different materials with different hardness, GIA explains. That is why they cost so much less.

Stone	What it is	Mohs hardness	How it looks
Natural diamond	Carbon, formed underground	10	Benchmark brilliance
Lab-grown diamond	Carbon, same crystal structure	10	Same as natural
Moissanite	Silicon carbide	9.25	More than twice the fire; doubled back facets
Cubic zirconia	Zirconium dioxide	8 to 8.5	More colorful flashes, less brilliance; can yellow over time

Cubic zirconia often costs less than 5% of a comparable diamond, GIA notes. Lab-grown diamonds sit between simulants and mined stones on price.

Cost of Lab-Grown Diamonds

The cost of lab-grown diamonds has fallen faster than almost anyone predicted. When De Beers launched its Lightbox brand in 2018, it priced lab-grown stones at $800 per carat. At the time, that was considered aggressively cheap.

Seven years later, De Beers said wholesale prices for lab-grown jewelry had dropped about 90% since that launch. Industry analyst Edahn Golan reported in 2026 that his lab-grown wholesale price index was down about 96% since he began tracking it in 2018.

Retail prices have fallen too, though not as much, because many jewelers kept wide margins. Zimnisky’s early-2025 estimate put a one-carat lab-grown stone at about $845 per carat, against about $3,895 for a comparable natural stone. In other words, the lab-grown version cost roughly a fifth as much, and the gap gets wider as stones get bigger.

How Much Are Lab-Grown Diamonds Worth?

Usually far less than you paid. Wholesale prices for lab-grown stones are down about 90% to 96% since 2018, according to the figures below, and that drags down resale value. This is where buyers need to be honest with themselves. What you pay for a lab-grown diamond and what it’s worth after you buy it are two very different numbers.

Because producers can keep making more, and because production costs keep falling, lab-grown diamonds have very weak resale value. Many jewelers won’t buy them back at all, and those that do typically offer a small fraction of the original price. If you want a beautiful stone for less money, that may not matter. If you think of a diamond as something that stores value, it matters a lot.

Natural diamonds don’t hold value perfectly either. Resale prices usually come in well below retail. But there is an established secondary market for them, and that is the main financial difference between the two.

Lab-Grown Diamonds vs Natural Prices in 2026

The gap is still huge. A near-colorless, excellent-cut lab-grown diamond can cost about $450 on Brilliant Earth, while a natural stone with the same specs runs about $2,800 to $3,200, CNBC found in September 2026. Brilliant Earth says lab stones can be as much as 90% cheaper.

Measure	Figure
Average 1-carat natural diamond, 2026	$3,898 (Rapaport data)
Same measure in 2021	$8,007
Drop in five years	51%
Similar lab-grown stone at Brilliant Earth	About $450
Engagement rings with a lab-grown center stone, 2025	61%, up 239% since 2020 (The Knot)
Diamond Standard Index low, early August 2026	2,490, its lowest ever

Natural stones are falling too. Mines overproduced during Covid, and stock built up in 2023 and 2024. De Beers said in July 2026 that it would halt its Venetia mine in South Africa for more than two years to cut supply. Diamond Standard CEO Cormac Kinney told CNBC he sees the beginning of a recovery for some qualities.

If you’re buying a ring to keep, the lab stone gives you more diamond for the money. If you care about resale, be careful with both. A diamond can sit for over a year on the secondary market, and stones often sell for less than half their retail price, CNBC reported. “You shouldn’t be buying a diamond thinking that there’s a financial investment [aspect] to it,” one New York jeweler said.

Diamond Prices Over Time

For most of the 20th century, diamond prices moved in one direction: up, and smoothly. That was not an accident. De Beers controlled most of the world’s rough diamond supply and held stones back when demand weakened, keeping prices steady.

That system weakened in the 2000s. De Beers moved away from stockpiling, and its share of global supply shrank as new mines opened elsewhere. Then lab-grown stones arrived at scale. Natural diamond prices have fallen sharply since 2022. Demand from China slumped, and shoppers switched to lab-grown stones for engagement rings and fashion jewelry. In the first nine months of 2026, De Beers’ average realized price fell 37% to $97 per carat. Part of the drop came from selling more lower-value stones.

De Beers and Lab-Grown Diamonds: Timeline

• 1888: Cecil Rhodes founds De Beers in Kimberley, South Africa.
• 2001: Anglo American and the Oppenheimer family take De Beers private at about $17.6 billion.
• 2012: Anglo pays $5.1 billion for the Oppenheimers’ 40% stake.
• 2018: The FTC drops “natural” from its definition of a diamond; De Beers launches Lightbox.
• 2023-2025: Anglo writes down De Beers by about $6.8 billion.
• May 2024: Anglo puts De Beers up for sale.
• May 8, 2025: De Beers says it will close Lightbox.
• February 2026: Carrying value cut to $2.3 billion.
• July 2026: A group led by Gareth Penny is named preferred bidder.

The De Beers Monopoly — and How It Broke

Cecil Rhodes founded De Beers in 1888 in Kimberley, South Africa. The Oppenheimer family later built it into a company that controlled most of the world’s rough diamond trade for much of the 20th century. It decided how many stones reached the market and at what price.

It also shaped how people felt about diamonds. The slogan “A Diamond Is Forever,” created for De Beers by the agency N. W. Ayer in 1947, helped make a diamond engagement ring feel essential in the United States and later around the world.

In 2001, Anglo American and the Oppenheimer family took De Beers private in a deal valued at about $17.6 billion. In 2012, Anglo paid $5.1 billion for the Oppenheimers’ 40% stake, giving it 85% of the company. The government of Botswana owns the other 15%.

Then came the lab-grown wave. De Beers tried to fight it from both sides. It launched Lightbox in 2018 to sell lab-grown jewelry cheaply and position it as fun fashion, not a substitute for an engagement ring. Prices collapsed anyway. On May 8, 2025, De Beers said it would close Lightbox.

The financial damage showed up in Anglo’s accounts. Anglo wrote down De Beers by about $6.8 billion in total from 2023 through 2025. In February 2026 it cut the carrying value to $2.3 billion. It put the company up for sale in May 2024. In July 2026 it picked a group led by former De Beers chief executive Gareth Penny as preferred bidder. Bloomberg has reported that talks value De Beers at about $1 billion. As of October 2026, no final deal has been signed.

From about $17.6 billion in 2001 to about $1 billion in 2026 is a fall of more than $16 billion in value, before even counting inflation. Our De Beers documentary tells that story from the first mine in Kimberley to the sale.

De Beers lost its grip slowly. Other empires fell in days: Sam Bankman-Fried went from crypto king to convicted fraudster within a year, and Bernie Madoff’s empire vanished overnight when the 2008 crisis hit.

Lab-Grown Diamonds vs Natural: FAQ

The Verdict on Lab-Grown Diamonds vs Natural

In the lab-grown diamonds vs natural diamonds debate, chemistry has already given its answer: both are diamonds. The real difference is scarcity, and scarcity is exactly what De Beers spent a century selling. Once a factory could make the same stone for a fraction of the price, that story got harder to tell. A company once worth about $17.6 billion was left looking for a buyer at about $1 billion.

If you’re shopping, choose with clear eyes. Lab-grown gives you more stone for your money. Natural gives you rarity and a resale market. Neither choice is wrong, as long as you know which one you’re paying for.

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