Pearl (PRL), a Layer 1 blockchain launched in April and built on Bitcoin's code, has surged 228% over the past month, reaching $1.93 on Uniswap v3 as of the time of reporting. The token climbed from around $0.59 in mid-September and has risen approximately 7x since August when it traded near $0.28.
The token's price trajectory has been volatile. After a decline in early October, it recovered and touched $2.10, with technical indicators showing the relative strength index (RSI) above the overbought threshold of 70, suggesting potential pullback risk.
How Pearl Works
Pearl distinguishes itself through its mining mechanism. Instead of requiring miners to solve SHA-256 puzzles as in traditional proof-of-work systems, Pearl miners perform matrix multiplication—the same mathematical operations used by GPUs to run artificial intelligence models. Zero-knowledge proofs help keep verification costs low, and partners like Together AI use the network for customer applications.
Challenges and Limitations
The network faces several hurdles. Miners can submit false data while still earning PRL tokens, meaning not all current mining activity produces genuinely useful computational work. Running AI models through Pearl currently causes a 10–15% performance slowdown, though a testnet upgrade aims to reduce this to 0–3%.
Supply presents another concern. The network produces approximately 1.01 million PRL daily, with an additional 305 million tokens expected to be mined over the next 12 months—nearly double the current circulating supply. Additionally, PRL currently trades on only two exchanges with limited liquidity.
