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RE: Synthorn- ICO for Synthetic Rhino Horn Dick Pills
Great work @v4vapid Thanks for taking the time to research this and bring it to our attention! It never ceases to amaze me the lengths people will go to take our money. With regards to Pembient I feel it could legitimise the trade and from a customs perspective make the illegal horn far more difficult to find. Indeed you could have a mixture of both illegal and synthetic horn and how would the majority of customs ever know? Personally I feel that yes the synthetic horn may bring down the price but there will still be a premium paid for horn that has somehow been certified as genuine, it could even increase in value. I can see what they're trying to do but in making the horn look authentic I can forsee many potential problems
Thank you for your thoughts. While many conservation organizations oppose "synthetics," there is a growing body of evidence that supports their development:
https://www.pembient.com/conservation/
As far as customs is concerned, smugglers view the confiscation of suspect horn as a tax, a tax that they budget for and that rhinos pay through additional harvesting. Furthermore, customs officials often do not undertake the expensive and time-consuming efforts (e.g., controlled delivery) needed to dismantle the smuggling networks.
If necessary, we can assist customs by including a secret DNA watermark in our product, so they don't waste their time tracking synthetics:
https://singularityhub.com/2010/05/24/venters-newest-synthetic-bacteria-has-secret-messages-coded-in-its-dna/
However, assuming synthetic horn is cheaper than illegal [wild] horn and there is no way to certify the latter, the case of a "mixture of both illegal [wild] and synthetic horn" (i.e., laundering) should never happen. That is, it would be more profitable to sell synthetic horns as wild than wild horns as wild, so why ship a mixture?
Finally, the job of customs is going to continue to increase in difficulty regardless of synthetics:
http://www.traffic.org/home/2017/9/17/organized-criminal-gangs-behind-rhino-horn-processing-in-sou.html