Pearl is a Layer 1 proof-of-useful-work blockchain, developed by Pearl Research Labs, whose native asset trades as PEARL on CoinStats and is called PRL in the project's own materials. Unlike Bitcoin, where mining performs hash calculations with no outside use, Pearl's miners perform the matrix multiplications that run AI inference and training, and those computations secure the network. The chain is derived from Bitcoin and went live on mainnet on 27 April 2026.
Core technology and blockchain architecture
The base layer is forked from Bitcoin's btcd codebase. It keeps the UTXO model and the longest-chain rule, with a target block time of about 194 seconds. Addresses are Taproot-only and begin with prl1p.
The reference full node, pearld, validates zero-knowledge proofs of work and includes XMSS post-quantum signature support. The monorepo contains the node, wallet, SPV light client, ZK proving system, vLLM miner, and supporting tools, and is released under the ISC license. Testnet, testnet2, simnet, and regtest networks run alongside mainnet.
Consensus mechanism and network security
Pearl uses Proof of Useful Work (PoUW). A miner starts from a real workload, two matrices drawn from genuine AI computation, adds noise, and then produces a zero-knowledge proof that the work was done without revealing the underlying computation. Other nodes can verify the proof without repeating the work.
The difficulty algorithm is WTEMA with a target window of approximately 7 days. Sources differ on the exact arithmetic: one describes INT8 matrix multiplication with a Plonky2 zkSNARK, while the September 2026 whitepaper specifies FP8 multiplication as the unit of work. Pearl's help center says a planned upgrade will move to high-accuracy approximate multiplication.
Primary use cases and real-world applications
- GPU mining through inference: The Pearl vLLM miner is a plugin that serves a language model while extracting proof of work from the model's matrix multiplications.
- Discounted inference: Together AI launched a serverless endpoint, Gemma-4-31B-it-Pearl, discounted by over 25% and offset by the value of Pearl emissions.
- Compute packages: Pearl sells cloud GPU mining packages through compute.pearlresearch.ai.
- Value transfer: PRL is used for transfers, miner incentives, and network security.
Who is behind Pearl and where is it based?
Pearl Research Labs is the developer. Public sources name Omri Weinstein, a theoretical computer scientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, as co-founder and CEO. Dealroom also lists Ilan Komargodski, an associate professor at the Hebrew University, and Idan Sugarman, with a venture capital background, as co-founders. These backgrounds come largely from the founders' own profiles and secondary articles, and the sources reviewed did not independently verify them.
The legal entity is Pearl Research Ltd., an Israeli private limited company. The Israeli corporate registry lists its incorporation date as 11 February 2025 in Tel Aviv, with registry number 517119137, and its prior name as Impossible Labs Ltd. The registry confirms the entity and address but not the full shareholder list.
Funding is disputed. Israeli outlet TheMarker reported on 25 October 2026 that the company raised about $130 million, split between $55 million in equity and $75 million for a GPU infrastructure vehicle, with Lightspeed, Ribbit Capital, and Square Peg named as investors. Pearl has not publicly confirmed these figures, and Caplight lists $55 million in total funding. Dealroom lists no known external funding.
Tokenomics
The total supply is capped at 2,100,000,000 PEARL. The market snapshot shows the following:
- Price: $1.44
- Market cap: $523.90M (rank #142)
- 24h volume: $5.61M
- Circulating supply: 364,609,578 PEARL
- Total supply: 2,100,000,000 PEARL
- All-time high: $2.46, with the current price 41.59% below it
Pearl has no halvings. Issuance declines smoothly according to a formula based on block height. Project materials state there was no pre-mine, no team or investor allocation, and no developer treasury. Because supply is issued only through mining, the project describes deflation as not applicable.
Key partnerships and ecosystem integrations
The most significant partnership is with Together AI, announced on 15 May 2026 as an exclusive arrangement and Pearl's first major enterprise partnership. Under it, Together AI hosts a Pearl-powered inference endpoint. Plugins for vLLM and SGLang are documented, though native inclusion in upstream vLLM is unverified.
Development activity and roadmap
Release v1.5.0, titled "Security hardening," and Wallet v3.0.0 are dated 13 October 2026 by the independent tracker LearnPearl, which also dates v1.5.3 to 21 October 2026. The GitHub monorepo was created on 19 April 2026 and shows 6,829 commits. An official mining pool is on the roadmap but was not live as of the project's July 2026 help article.