A 555-carat diamond with mysterious origins estimated to be billion years old has been sold for $4.5 million in cryptocurrency at a Sotheby’s auction.
The diamond has baffled geologists over its origin, where it’s still not clear whether it came from outer space or was crystallized in the earth’s mantle. The diamond is characterized by its opaque black appearance with full of visible holes.
The carbonade diamond is available in only two regions on the planet, namely Brazil and the Central African Republic. However, what makes this carbonade diamond even more mysterious is the fact that it contains an array of metals, such as the titanium nitride mineral osbornite, which is commonly found in meteorites.
Sotheby’s did not reveal the buyer’s name, however, Richard Heart, an entrepreneur on Twitter claimed to be the anonymous owner of the diamond.
Sotheby didn’t respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comments at the time of writing.
I won the world’s largest cut diamond for our #HEXican cultural heritage! It’ll be called the https://t.co/mLZsmWqXG0 diamond, it weighs 555.55 carats and has 55 facets. Congratulations to all you #HEXicans with #5555 club https://t.co/mLZsmWqXG0 tattoos. Let’s all win together! pic.twitter.com/37mfTGbzMe
— Richard Heart ETH FORK PulseChain.com,PulseX.com!❁ (@RichardHeartWin) February 9, 2022
The auction house described the enormous diamond to be a very specific type of black diamond that was created either from meteoric impacts or “an extraterrestrial origin – from supernovae explosions that formed diamond-bearing asteroids which ultimately collided with the Earth.”
Related: Colin McRae’s long-lost rally car reportedly sold for Bitcoin at auction
According to a report published in The Sun, Stephen Haggerty, a professor of earth and environment at Florida International University claimed there is no sound scientific theory to prove its origin to be on earth. He said:
“There has not been a single, scientifically sound alternative to the [extraterrestrial] origin of carbonado,”
Sotheby became one of the first luxury auction houses to accept crypto as a payment starting in October 2021. Similarly, Lloyds Auctions, an Australian auction house announced it would start accepting Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptos, as a payment in June 2021, and in September, the auctioneer sold Colin McRae’s long-lost rally car for $360,000 worth of BTC.
Christie’s, another top auction house started it all with the sale of Beeple’s NFT that fetched a whopping $69 million, paid in Ether (ETH). More auction houses followed the suite since then as crypto has gained popularity as a mainstream hassle-free payment mode.