Update. A rare black diamond believed to have come from space has been sold for $4.3 million—some $2.5 million less than Sotheby's expected. The auction house says the 555.55 carat "Enigma" diamond, which it calls " one of the rarest, billion-year-old cosmic wonders known to humankind," went to a buyer who chose to pay with cryptocurrency, the BBC reports. Crypto entrepreneur Richard Heart identified himself as the buyer. He tweeted that the gem will be renamed the "HEX.com diamond" as soon as payment goes through. Our story from Jan. 17 follows:
Auction house Sotheby’s Dubai has unveiled a diamond that’s literally from out of this world. Sotheby’s calls the 555.55-carat black diamond—believed to have come from outer space—"The Enigma." The rare gem was shown off on Monday to journalists as part of a tour in Dubai and Los Angeles before it is due to be auctioned off in February in London. Sotheby’s expects the diamond to be sold for at least $6.8 million. The auction house plans to accept cryptocurrency as a possible payment as well. Sophie Stevens, a jewelry specialist at Sotheby’s Dubai, tells the AP that the number five bears an important significance to the diamond, which has 55 facets as well.
"The shape of the diamond is based on the Middle-Eastern palm symbol of the Khamsa, which stands for strength and it stands for protection,” she says. Khamsa in Arabic means five. "So there’s a nice theme of the number five running throughout the diamond." Black diamonds, also known as carbonado, are extremely rare, and are found naturally only in Brazil and central Africa. "We believe that they were formed through extraterrestrial origins, with meteorites colliding with the Earth and either forming chemical vapor disposition or indeed coming from the meteorites themselves," Stevens says. The cosmic origin theory is based on their carbon isotopes and high hydrogen content.
(More
diamond stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
