PoW God Mine? a16z Spends $1.5M Buying In Bulk, Pearl Revitalizes the Mining Community (With Mining Tutorial)

Original by Odaily (@OdailyChina)

Author: Golem (@web3_golem)

Every year, the crypto market sees one or two mining coins emerge from obscurity, reigniting the enthusiasm of the mining community. This year's project is called Pearl.

On April 27, the Pearl mainnet quietly launched, but it only garnered attention a month later, this week. The catalyst was a post on May 27 by Pearl community member @optimist on X, stating that a wallet potentially linked to a16z had quietly accumulated over $1.5 million worth of PRL, the Pearl network's native token. As the news spread, the PRL token price surged from around $0.6 to over $1.5, a gain of over 150% in just two days.

Rumored a16z-linked wallet accumulating PRL

However, whether this wallet truly belongs to a16z remains unconfirmed. It's highly possible that the news was deliberately spread by the community to boost attention on Pearl. What is certain is that a16z has indeed had some connection with the project: On January 26, 2026, a16z crypto research published an article introducing the PoUW algorithm proposed by Pearl founder Omri Weinstein, which is the core of the Pearl network (Odaily note: this article has since been deleted).

Proof of Useful Work (PoUW): Combining AI Inference Tasks with Mining

Pearl's core model still involves users mining coins with GPU miners, with the network designed similarly to the Bitcoin blockchain. However, its uniqueness lies in proposing a new proof-of-work mechanism built on PoW: Proof of Useful Work (PoUW).

In traditional PoW blockchains, miners primarily secure the network by having computers solve cryptographic puzzles, a computation often criticized as meaningless – serving no purpose other than securing the blockchain. This is particularly criticized in the current AI wave for wasting valuable computing resources.

To prevent wasted computing power, Pearl's PoUW discards the SHA-256 algorithm and instead adopts matrix multiplication (MatMul / GEMM) from AI computation. The computing resources provided by users' GPUs to the Pearl network are not only used to secure the Pearl network but also execute AI workloads, providing AI training and inference services to large model companies, thereby generating real value. From this perspective, the tokens generated through mining are essentially rewards for users providing computing power for AI computations.

Pearl's PoUW is called "useful" precisely because it allows GPUs to simultaneously handle AI training and inference workloads while performing blockchain proof-of-work and generating tokens. Currently, Pearl has partnered with the large model training platform Together AI to launch the Gemma-4-31B-it-Pearl endpoint (based on Google's Gemma 4 31B model). Developers using this endpoint also receive a 25% discount, subsidized by the PRL tokens mined.

The token produced by the Pearl network is PRL, with a total supply of 2.1 billion tokens. The network's average block time is set at 194 seconds. However, the token output per block on the Pearl network is not fixed and has no halving mechanism; instead, it's determined by an issuance curve. One of the core formulas for this curve is A(t)=t / (t + H), where A(t) is the cumulative token allocation ratio, t is the current block height, and H is a fixed value of 650226 (the block height corresponding to four years).

Based on the PRL cumulative allocation ratio, one can estimate the number of tokens produced per block. Of course, for a regular user, you can simply visit the Pearl block explorer to view the total token supply mined, block reward amount, block height, average block time, and other information without needing to calculate it yourself.

As shown above, over 8.8% of PRL tokens have already been mined. Furthermore, based on a price of $1.65, PRL's circulating market cap exceeds $300 million.

Comprehensive Introduction to Mining and Ecosystem

In the current crypto market environment, PRL's market cap might seem somewhat inflated, but this is also due to increased mining costs. Pearl supports users mining with their own GPUs, as well as renting cloud GPUs directly on the platform for mining. As shown below, Pearl offered three packages which, due to the project's surge in popularity, have already sold out.

The mining costs for these three packages are not cheap. Taking Package 1 as an example: $1099 for renting 1000TH/s for 10 consecutive days, which translates to a cost of about $4.57 per hour for 1000TH/s. Community member @AKAKAY04 created a simple PRL mining cost calculator. Inputting the hourly cost and hashrate from Pearl's Package 1 shows that the average cost per mined PRL is between $1.51 and $1.77, which is quite close to PRL's market price. Even purchasing Package 3 only reduces the PRL cost to between $1.33 and $1.56.

Therefore, to profitably participate in Pearl network mining, one must rent sufficiently cheap GPU computing power. Currently, the recommended rental platforms within the community are RunPod and Vast.ai, with 4090 and 5090 GPU prices ranging from $0.5 to $2 per hour.

After successfully renting a GPU, users can choose to join a Pearl mining pool. Currently, the Pearl ecosystem has four main mining pools: pearlhash, alphapool, Akoya, and mineprl. Community member @peterdai111 summarized the characteristics of these four pools for users to evaluate and choose from. (Odaily note: For specific processes, you can ask an AI or refer to the tutorial written by community member @0xtonixie)

It has only been one month since the Pearl mainnet launch. For a new project, its ecosystem development is already quite mature. Besides the community-initiated mining pools and block explorers, there are also cross-chain bridges, OTC platforms, and NFTs.

PearlBridge is the first cross-chain bridge project on the Pearl network. It allows users to lock native PRL tokens and mint WPRL at a 1:1 ratio on Ethereum. The project charges a 1.5% deposit fee (minimum 4 PRL), with no fees for redemptions. Currently, the project has locked over 320,000 PRL. Users holding WPRL on EVM chains can trade it freely on the OKX Web3 wallet or other DEXs.

Users can also buy and sell native PRL tokens directly on the pearl-otc platform. This is a non-custodial trading platform where USDC is transferred directly between buyer and seller wallets, while PRL is held in a "2-of-2" multi-signature escrow account jointly signed by the sellers. The platform cannot unilaterally transfer funds. This platform is currently the main price reference for PRL, offering strong liquidity, and also allows users to view the PRL price fluctuation chart.

PRL price fluctuation chart

On May 23, the crypto exchange SafeTrade also listed PRL. However, this trading platform is relatively small and not well-known. Users should exercise caution regarding fund security when trading PRL on this platform.

The No-Longer-Hidden Flywheel of Mining Coins

An unspoken rule in the mining community is that regardless of how innovative a mining coin's model is, the core logic always boils down to "mine and dump." PoW mining is essentially a mathematical game involving only cold machines, precise calculations of input and output, and the greed to squeeze out the last bit of profit before a crash. It's not a regular project token because it lacks fundamental value, nor is it a Meme because it lacks attention and cultural consensus.

Therefore, the flywheel effect of mining coins is no longer hidden: "Miners mine tokens → Design buying pressure → Token price rises → Wealth effect is generated → More people are willing to mine". The core support for this model always requires the existence of buying pressure. But there is no perpetual motion machine in this world, and the market cannot have infinite buying demand. It can be said that a mining coin is like a train heading for a cliff from the moment it departs. Everyone sees the destination, and everyone believes they will get off just before the end.

In the past, some mining coin project teams created false market demand through self-mining and self-pumping. Their main profit didn't come from selling coins but from selling mining machines to users. However, when market-making costs exceeded mining machine profits, this model also collapsed.

Now, looking at Pearl, some believe it is more than just a mining coin and has the potential to grow into the next Bittensor (TAO). This is because Pearl's biggest difference from past mining projects is that the computing resources it consumes are not only used to price PRL but are also genuinely used to provide AI training and inference services to physical-world large model companies. This is the value of Pearl's PoUW, making it more similar to a DePIN project.

However, given the current project development stage, this value is more of a gimmick. This is because Pearl's current core implementation is based on precise integer matrix multiplication, whereas modern AI workloads (especially large model training) do not operate in an integer (INT) environment but rely on low-precision floating-point formats. Extending the current PoUW mechanism to floating-point data types presents significant technical challenges.

Therefore, whether Pearl can escape the death spiral curse of mining coins in the future depends on genuine technical strength, capital and institutional support, and public endorsement, rather than just relying on today's "limitless speculation" about a16z.