Do Diamonds Still Stack Up as Investments Next to Gold and Silver?

Someone who placed $100 in gold in 2011 would have $216 today, a return of more than double. Silver’s profit is smaller, yet that $100 would still have become $122. The same amount put into diamonds, however, would now be worth only $30.

The Bloomberg Diamond Standard Index, which monitors investment-grade stones, has just touched its lowest level in more than 20 years. Does that mean diamonds are heading toward worthlessness?

Diamonds Can Now Be Grown in Factories; Gold Cannot

The gem’s appeal as an investment has eroded thanks to laboratory advances.

Lab-created diamonds consist of the same carbon as mined ones. Edahn Golan’s data puts the wholesale price of a certified 1-carat lab stone at $76 to $87.

Buyers responded to the price. Among US couples married in 2025, 61% chose a lab-grown engagement stone, The Knot found. Walmart is now reported to sell half-carat lab-grown earrings for $12.

Walmart is selling real diamond earrings for $12.

Not a typo. Half-carat lab-grown diamonds, same carbon, graded by the same labs that grade the stone in your engagement ring. A jeweler can't tell them apart without a machine.

And that $12 price tag is why the company that… https://t.co/BdASP6FC6o

— Aakash Gupta (@aakashgupta) October 12, 2026

BeInCrypto found lab-grown stud earrings from third-party sellers on Walmart’s site, several of them carrying sharply reduced prices.

“Diamonds are about to be absolutely worthless,” one user noted.

De Beers, which for decades kept prices high by tightly managing supply, is now on the selling block. It was valued at close to $13 billion in 2011; a sale might now bring about $1 billion.

Diamond giant De Beers in talks for $1B sale to consortium – fraction of previous worth due to plummeting demand: report https://t.co/iJU1aokSDK

— New York Post (@nypost) July 29, 2026

Gold and Silver Fell Hard in 2026. Diamonds Fared Worse.

Gold is changing hands near $4,157, roughly 23% beneath its January high. Silver is at $60.46, down nearly half from a high of $116.

The slide tracked higher US bond yields, not fresh supply, as the recent sell-off in gold and silver showed. September also saw China’s central bank make its biggest gold purchase since 2023.

Are Diamonds Really Headed for Zero?

The figures do not support that conclusion yet. Marketplace quoted diamond analyst Paul Zimnisky as saying that a seller could recover roughly half of what was paid for a stone.

“For most people, I wouldn’t look at it as an investment,” he said.

Natural diamond prices also moved up in September, according to Rapaport data. Golan described the gains as an early sign of stability rather than a recovery.

Gold has a single global price and a supply that no factory can expand. Diamonds now have neither.