# How to mine Pearl

https://www.learnpearl.org/mine-pearl/ · Checked October 20, 2026 · Intermediate

Mining Pearl means contributing work, competing for rewards and paying real operating costs. Start with measurement: a GPU that can run a miner is not automatically a profitable, or useful, setup.

## Key takeaways

- The official miner is built on vLLM for NVIDIA CUDA GPUs; third-party pools offer their own software and terms.
- Make a self-custody wallet and a dedicated mining address before you start.
- Benchmark for 24 hours and measure power at the wall before buying anything.
- Profit = PRL earned × the price you can really sell at − electricity − fees − other costs.

## Three ways to take part

The official repository documents a miner built on vLLM, the AI serving engine, connected to a Pearl full node through a gateway. For now it supports only NVIDIA H100 and H200 GPUs (the sm90 architecture, through CUDA) running AI workloads: the path closest to Pearl’s useful-work idea.

Third-party pools offer separate miners and wider consumer-GPU support. Pearl Research Labs has no pool of its own yet and tells miners to treat third-party pools “with real caution” ([its help center](https://help.pearlresearch.ai/hc/en-us/articles/49191106475921-Is-there-a-Pearl-mining-pool)). As of October 20, 2026, the largest by reported hashrate were Kryptex and PearlHash, according to [MiningBoard](https://miningboard.com/en/coins/prl), a third-party tracker. Their software, fees, payout rules and security are controlled by them, not by Pearl Research Labs or this guide. A mention here is not an endorsement.

Pearl Research Labs also sells compute packages: you pay for a share of GPU work it runs and receive a proportional share of the block rewards, without running hardware. Rewards fall as more compute joins the network and move with the PRL price, so treat any quoted rate as a scenario ([how rewards are calculated](https://help.pearlresearch.ai/hc/en-us/articles/49186068287505-How-compute-package-rewards-are-calculated-and-why-they-vary)).

- **AI-integrated mining:** Official vLLM miner · Combines model serving with mining
- **Pool mining:** Third-party software · Compatibility and terms vary, and change fast
- **Compute package:** Pearl’s own platform · Rewards without hardware; returns vary

## The mining sequence

1. **Create a self-custody wallet.** Back up the wallet, then generate a dedicated receive address for mining payouts. See the [wallet guide](https://www.learnpearl.org/wallet/).
2. **Write down your real costs.** Your electricity price, power at the wall, pool fee, downtime and hardware wear all count.
3. **Choose solo or pool.** Solo mining pays rarely but in full; pools pay steadily but add fees and a third party you depend on.
4. **Verify the software.** Use a primary publisher, read the release notes, and check community reports before running any program.
5. **Benchmark for 24 hours.** Measure accepted and rejected shares (the units of work a pool counts), power at the wall, temperature, stability and the actual payout.
6. **Recalculate every week.** Difficulty, price, fees and your share of the network can change faster than your hardware cost.

## The profitability math

Estimated daily profit is the PRL you expect to earn times the price you could actually sell at, minus electricity, pool fees, hosting, downtime and a reserve for hardware. If any input is a guess, the answer is a scenario, not a forecast.

**Daily profit:** `(PRL per day × sale price) − electricity − pool fees − other costs`

Electricity per day = watts at the wall ÷ 1,000 × 24 × price per kWh.

> **Revenue is not profit.** Screenshots of coins per day usually leave out electricity, rejected work, pool minimums, liquidity, taxes and the cost of the GPU itself. Run the [mining calculator](https://www.learnpearl.org/tools/mining-calculator/) with your own measured numbers.

## Before choosing a pool

- Confirm the pool’s web address from more than one independent source.
- Read its payout method, minimum payout, fee and policy on orphaned blocks.
- Check whether it holds your balance until payout, and what happens if it shuts down.
- Compare regional servers and latency from where you actually are.
- Use a unique worker name, and never reuse an account password.
- Run a small payout test before adding hardware.

## Stay on the current rules

Pearl changes its rules at fixed block heights, and miners have to upgrade in time: after the August 2026 salted noise-seed hard fork, old miners produced invalid work. The October 2026 v1.5.0 release told miners and pools to upgrade ahead of everyone else, because it tightened a script validation rule.

> **Follow the releases.** Watch the [official releases](https://github.com/pearl-research-labs/pearl/releases) and your pool’s announcements. Running outdated software can mean burning electricity on work the network rejects.

## Hardware compatibility

The official AI-integrated miner and third-party miners have different requirements. CUDA version, GPU generation, memory, operating system and miner release all matter.

Don’t buy a GPU because of an old video or a calculator preset. Confirm support in the exact miner release you’ll run, then benchmark it at your electricity price.

## Questions people ask

### Can I mine Pearl on a Mac?

The official mining stack is built for NVIDIA CUDA, which Apple Silicon doesn’t have. A Mac can run a node or a wallet; treat GPU mining as a separate Linux/NVIDIA job unless the project publishes native support.

### Is pool mining safer than solo mining?

It makes payouts steadier, not risk lower. A pool adds custody, uptime, software and payout-policy dependencies.

### Should I buy hardware to mine PRL?

Only after confirming miner compatibility and modeling several difficulty and price scenarios. Early-network profitability can shrink quickly as more miners arrive.

## Sources

- [Is there a Pearl mining pool? (help center)](https://help.pearlresearch.ai/hc/en-us/articles/49191106475921-Is-there-a-Pearl-mining-pool) (Pearl Research Labs, primary)
- [How compute package rewards are calculated (help center)](https://help.pearlresearch.ai/hc/en-us/articles/49186068287505-How-compute-package-rewards-are-calculated-and-why-they-vary) (Pearl Research Labs, primary)
- [MiningBoard: Pearl (PRL) pools and hashrate](https://miningboard.com/en/coins/prl) (MiningBoard, aggregator)
- [Pearl monorepo on GitHub](https://github.com/pearl-research-labs/pearl) (Pearl Research Labs, primary)
- [Official Pearl releases](https://github.com/pearl-research-labs/pearl/releases) (Pearl Research Labs, primary)
- [Pearl v1.5.0 “Security hardening” release notes](https://github.com/pearl-research-labs/pearl/releases/tag/v1.5.0) (Pearl Research Labs, primary)
- [Pearl v1.4.1 “Salted Noise-seed hardfork” release](https://github.com/pearl-research-labs/pearl/releases/tag/v1.4.1) (Pearl Research Labs, primary)