The financial standard coloured gemstones have lacked for five centuries.
A $25B private trade with no continuous price, no fractional access, no on-chain settlement. CaratShares introduces all three — and publishes them as the open standard the industry adopts. A standard, not a marketplace.
The problem
An asset class still trading like it's 1925. Bonds, diamonds, art, and gold all built transparent, fractional, settled markets. Coloured gemstones built nothing — priced by reputation in private rooms. The three barriers (identification, custody, settlement) all fell in the last decade.
The solution
Bloomberg prints terminals; ICANN runs DNS; CaratShares publishes the spec fine gemstones trade on-chain by. Each stone lists via a fixed-price First Light Offering in Facets (ERC-20 fractions), then trades continuously on a stablecoin-settled order book.
How it works
FLOPrimary issuance, fixed price / Facet, NAV-anchored.
FacetsERC-20 fractions, one contract per stone.
Squeeze-out≥75% buys minority at NAV+15%, 7-day window.
Redemption100% holder burns supply, vault ships stone.
Economics — 5 streams
- Listing 5% of FLO · Trading 1.5% of fills
- Performance 15% of NAV gain over high-water mark
- Custody 2%/yr of NAV · Redemption 2% at delivery
- Blended 3–4% platform take/yr at $250M inventory — scales with the asset class, not churn.
Why now
- Lab digitisation — QR-coded GIA reports are standard.
- RWA at peak — but gemstones are virgin territory.
- Generational handover + MiCA / FIT21 compliance crystallising. 12–18 month window.
The raise — $3M pre-seed
Inventory (10–20 real stones)$1.4M
Engineering hires$500K
Audit · legal · KYC · vault · labs$500K
Ops, BD, founder — 24 months$600K
Total ask$3.0M