Influential mining executive Mark Cutifani has joined the board of advisers of Diamond Standard Co, developer of the world's only regulated and market-traded natural diamond commodities.

Diamond Standard has operations in New York and Bermuda, where Diamond Standard Ltd is a digital-assets business licensed by the Bermuda Monetary Authority.

As CEO from 2013 to 2022, Mr Cutifani is credited with transforming Anglo American, one of the world's largest mining companies, where he delivered a fivefold increase in stock price. He was chairman of De Beers, the leading diamond mine operator and marketer of natural diamonds.

He serves as chairman of Vale Base Metals, which, shortly after his appointment, raised $3.4 billion from the Public Investment Fund and Ma'aden mining of Saudi Arabia, Diamond Standard said.

The company said the timing of his joining Diamond Standard coincides with its ambitious plans to launch listed financial products for diamonds, finally enabling investors to diversify into an underallocated asset with significant upside potential.

Diamond Standard said it has agreed to develop futures on the Minneapolis Grain Exchange via CME Globex and options on the Miami International Securities Exchange, and previously filed an ETF.

MGEX and MIAX are owned by Miami International Holdings Inc, which also owns the Bermuda Stock Exchange.

Diamond Standard Fund, the company's inaugural fund offering, is a collaboration with Horizon Kinetics, a $6.5 billion US Securities and Exchange Commission-registered investment adviser and sponsor of the Inflation Beneficiaries ETF.

A strategic partnership with Oasis Pro Markets will allow for this private fund for accredited investors to list on an alternative trading system, the company said.

"Mark's global perspective and experience will help us to apply our technology to unlock other natural resources as investable assets." said Cormac Kinney, founder of Diamond Standard.

Mr Cutifani was formerly CEO of AngloGold Ashanti, a $7 billion market cap mining company producing gold, silver and uranium.

Diamond Standard said he was a member of the World Gold Council during the development of the SPDR Gold Trust. Operated by State Street Global Advisors, it was briefly the largest exchange traded fund in the world, and within seven years of listing, gold had appreciated by more than 300 per cent, in part due to this new investor demand.

Diamond Standard's innovative commodities are transparent coins and bars containing geologically equivalent sets of natural diamonds, assembled under supervision of the Bermuda Monetary Authority and internal audit by Deloitte.

Bloomberg and Refinitiv publish the daily market price, and the commodities trade on the Diamond Standard Spot Marketplace.

By using computer science to optimise diamonds into a market-traded asset, Diamond Standard said, it enables investors to access a natural resource worth $1.2 trillion — more than all the world's silver and platinum combined.

The company said this breakthrough real-world asset is efficiently transacted as a vault receipt token, providing diversification, potential inflation protection, and a new store of wealth for institutional and individual investors, while bringing transparency and efficiency to the diamond supply chain.