The Pearl glossary, in plain English.

The address format Pearl uses: lowercase, human-readable, with a checksum that catches typing mistakes.

Pearl address

A batch of verified transactions, linked to the block before it. Pearl aims for one block every 194 seconds.

BlockchainBlock rewardBlock certificate

Also: certificate, proof

The proof a Pearl block carries that its matrix work was really performed, up to 65,000 bytes. Checking it is the most expensive part of validating a block.

Its format has changed at fixed heights: V1 at launch, V2 from the MoE fork, V3 from the salted noise-seed fork. A V4 (FP8) format is in development and not live.

Zero-knowledge proofHard fork and soft fork

A website for looking up blocks, transactions and addresses. Pearl Research Labs runs an official one; community explorers exist too.

Block

Also: subsidy, coinbase

What the miner of a block earns: newly created PRL (the subsidy) plus the fees of the transactions in it.

The subsidy shrinks a little with every block on a smooth curve. Freshly mined PRL can be spent after 100 more blocks.

EmissionCoinbase maturityTransaction fee Emission explorer

A shared record of transactions that thousands of computers keep in sync, so no single company controls it.

New entries are added in blocks, each linked to the one before it, which makes old history very hard to rewrite.

BlockFull nodeConsensus

A block hash built into the node software so a new node can’t be fed a fake history before it. The latest is block 120,000.

Full node

Newly mined PRL can’t be spent until 100 more blocks have been built on top of the block that created it.

Block reward

The block that includes your transaction is its first confirmation, and each block added after it is one more. More confirmations make it harder to reverse.

How many to wait for depends on the amount and the receiver’s policy; one block is not absolute finality.

ReorganizationBlock

The rules every node uses to agree on one valid history. Pearl nodes follow the valid chain with the most accumulated work.

Full nodeHard fork and soft fork

NVIDIA’s platform for programming its GPUs. Pearl’s official miner targets CUDA, so Apple Silicon Macs can’t run it.

GPUvLLM

The target that sets how hard it is to win a block. It rises when more work joins the network and falls when work leaves.

WTEMAHashrate

Also: issuance, emission curve

How new PRL enters circulation. Pearl’s reward shrinks smoothly every block, with no sudden halvings; about half the supply is issued in the first four years.

The issued amount after h blocks follows 2.1 billion × h ÷ (h + 650,226), where 650,226 blocks is about four years at the 194-second target.

Block rewardPRL Emission explorer

8-bit floating point, the number format modern GPUs use for fast AI. Pearl has published an FP8 version of its protocol, with code in development; it is not live.

QuantizationBlock certificate Read the FP8 story

Also: node

Software that checks every block and transaction against the rules for itself, and passes valid ones on. You don’t need a GPU to run one.

pearldLight client (SPV) Run a Pearl node

Graphics processing unit: the chip built to do matrix math in parallel. It powers AI, and Pearl’s mining.

CUDAMatrix multiplication

The smallest unit of PRL: 1 PRL is 100,000,000 grains, the way one bitcoin is 100,000,000 satoshis.

The protocol does all its arithmetic in grains, so 0.00000001 PRL is the smallest amount you can send.

PRL

Also: hard fork, soft fork, hardfork, softfork

A change to the network’s rules. A hard fork needs everyone to upgrade; a soft fork only tightens rules, so older nodes still follow the chain.

Pearl’s rule changes have so far activated at fixed block heights: MoE hard fork at 71,935, dense-only soft fork at 91,630, rank-penalty soft fork at 96,251, salted noise-seed hard fork at 99,000.

ConsensusFull node Timeline

Also: network work

An estimate of how much work the whole network performs. Explorers derive Pearl’s figure from difficulty; it is not a measurement of useful computation.

Difficulty

Running a trained AI model to get an answer, such as a chatbot replying to you. Most AI computing today is inference.

TrainingMatrix multiplication

Also: L1

A base blockchain with its own nodes, rules and coin, rather than a token or app built on top of another chain.

Pearl is a layer 1. Native PRL has no token contract on Ethereum, Solana or any other chain.

PRLWPRL

Also: SPV, light client, compact block filters

A lighter way to follow the chain: it checks block headers and compact filters instead of every transaction. Pearl’s light client still verifies each block’s certificate.

Full nodeWallet

Also: mainnet, testnet, testnet2, regtest, simnet

Mainnet is the real network, where PRL has value. Testnets copy it with worthless coins, for practice and development.

Mainnet addresses start with prl1. Testnet addresses start with tprl1, and those of the local regtest and simnet networks with rprl1. Never send mainnet coins to a test address.

Pearl address

Also: MatMul, GEMM, matrix math

Multiplying two grids of numbers: each cell of the result is a row of one grid times a column of the other. It is most of what AI models compute.

GPUInferenceProof of useful work Try the MatMul playground

The waiting room: valid transactions that nodes have seen but no block has included yet.

TransactionTransaction fee

Someone running hardware that performs Pearl’s work and competes to produce the next valid block.

Mining poolSolo miningBlock reward How to mine Pearl

A service that combines many miners’ work and shares the rewards by its own rules, for a fee. Steadier payouts, plus a third party you depend on.

Solo miningMiner

Also: MoE

A model design that sends each input to a few specialist sub-networks. Pearl accepted MoE mining proofs from block 71,935 until the dense-only soft fork at block 91,630; mainnet now accepts only dense proofs.

Inference

Also: low-rank noise

Random, low-rank matrices mixed into the miner’s inputs so the work can’t be shortcut. Low-rank means built from a few simple patterns, so the miner can cheaply remove the noise afterwards and keep the useful answer.

Matrix multiplicationProof of useful work

Also: oystercli, prlctl

Pearl’s wallet daemon. oystercli is its interactive terminal app, and prlctl is the command-line tool that talks to the node and wallet.

Not related to Oyster Pearl, a 2017 Ethereum token that also used the ticker PRL.

Walletpearld Which “Pearl” is which

A layer-1 blockchain whose mining is matrix multiplication, the same math AI models run on. Its coin is PRL.

Keep two names apart: Pearl is the network; Pearl Research Labs is the company that builds the reference software and also runs an AI inference platform.

PRLProof of useful workMatrix multiplication What is Pearl?

Also: prl1, HRP

Where PRL is sent. Mainnet addresses start with prl1; the public test networks use tprl1. Pearl’s wallet creates Taproot addresses only.

Addresses use the Bech32m checksum, which catches most typos. Wallets derive them on the path m/86'/808276'/account'/branch/index.

TaprootBech32mMainnet and testnet

Pearl’s reference full node, written in Go and descended from btcd, a Bitcoin node.

Full nodeOyster

Pearl’s native coin. The supply is capped at 2,100,000,000 PRL, issued to miners block by block.

GrainEmissionBlock reward Emission explorer

Also: PoUW, useful work

Proof of work where the computation can also be useful outside the chain. In Pearl, the work is matrix multiplication, the core math of AI.

The protocol can verify that the work was done. Whether a given computation served a real customer is a separate question, known as the usefulness gap.

Matrix multiplicationUsefulness gapBlock certificate How Pearl works

Also: PoW

A way to choose who adds the next block: miners spend real computation, and anyone can check the result cheaply.

Bitcoin’s work is SHA-256 hashing, which is useful only for securing Bitcoin. Pearl keeps proof of work and changes what the work is.

Proof of useful workDifficultyMiner

How much extra time producing Pearl’s proof adds to an AI workload. Pearl reports 3.9% and 5.08% on two production setups; independent replication is pending.

Proof of useful workInference Our story on the benchmarks

Also: W7A7, INT8

Storing a model’s numbers with fewer bits so it runs faster. Pearl’s live mining uses integer math; its published overhead figures use 7-bit weights and activations.

FP8Proof overhead

Also: seed phrase, mnemonic, recovery phrase

The list of words that can recreate your wallet’s keys. Anyone who has it controls your PRL, so it never goes into a website, chat or screenshot.

WalletSelf-custody

Also: reorg

When nodes switch to a competing chain with more work, replacing the most recent blocks. It is why recent transactions are less final than older ones.

ConfirmationConsensus

Holding your own keys rather than leaving coins with an exchange, which holds the keys for you until you withdraw.

WalletRecovery seed

Mining on your own and earning only when you find a block yourself. No pool fee, but payouts can be far apart.

Mining pool

A modern Bitcoin output type (witness version 1) with compact signatures and flexible scripts. It is the only kind of address Pearl’s wallet creates.

Pearl’s rules accept only three output kinds: Taproot, P2MR (pay-to-Merkle-root) and data-only outputs. Bitcoin’s older formats are invalid on Pearl.

Pearl address

Teaching an AI model by adjusting its numbers (weights) over huge amounts of data. Also mostly matrix multiplication.

Inference

A signed message that spends existing outputs and creates new ones, for example paying someone and sending the change back to yourself.

UTXOMempoolTransaction fee

Also: fee rate

What a transaction pays the miner to include it. Pearl uses a first-price market: miners fill blocks with the highest fee rates first.

There is no fee burn and no base fee. Replacing a stuck transaction with a higher fee is relay policy, not a guarantee.

MempoolBlock reward

The open question of how much Pearl mining serves real AI workloads, rather than matrix math done only to win blocks.

An independent study of the live network over May 30–31, 2026, reported that the dominant mining software appeared to contain no inference code. Pearl changed its proof rules in the forks that followed; whether the finding still holds has not been re-measured.

Proof of useful work Our story on the study

Also: unspent transaction output

An unspent transaction output: a chunk of coins that a new transaction can spend. Pearl tracks ownership the same way Bitcoin does.

A wallet balance is the sum of the UTXOs its keys can spend. Spending one consumes it whole and creates new outputs, including change back to you.

TransactionWallet

A popular open-source engine for serving AI models. Pearl’s official miner is built on it, so serving a model and mining can happen together.

InferenceMiner

Software that holds your keys and signs your transactions. Your PRL lives on the chain; the wallet holds what proves it’s yours.

Recovery seedSelf-custodyOyster Set up a wallet

Also: wrapped PRL

A third-party token on Ethereum that tracks PRL through a bridge. It is not native PRL, it is not issued by Pearl Research Labs, and the bridge has no completed independent audit.

Layer 1PRL Buy PRL safely

Pearl’s difficulty rule. It adjusts after every block from how long that block took, smoothed over a one-week time constant.

Bitcoin, by contrast, adjusts once every 2,016 blocks. WTEMA is why Pearl requires each block’s timestamp to be at least one second after the previous one.

Difficulty

Also: post-quantum, XMSS, OP_CHECKXMSSSIG

A hash-based signature scheme designed to resist quantum computers. Pearl’s script includes an XMSS check, and its wallet can commit XMSS keys into a Taproot address.

Whether anything on mainnet uses it is not established, so “post-quantum ready” does not mean “quantum-safe today”.

Taproot

Also: ZK proof, zkSNARK, SNARK

A short proof that something is true, checkable without seeing all the underlying data. Pearl compresses its proof of work this way.

Block certificate