Pearl vs Bitcoin

Both networks are costed the same way: observed hashrate divided by the most efficient machine currently sold for it. That gives a floor on power, machines and capital — real fleets run older hardware — but because the method is identical, the ratio between the two is meaningful. The hashrates themselves are not comparable: a Pearl hash is an FP8 matrix multiplication, a Bitcoin hash is SHA-256d. Only the physical quantities are.

Pearl energy as a share of Bitcoin

The headline comparison. Watts are comparable even when hashes are not.

Network power draw

Pearl on H200s at 700 W and 1.25 PUE; Bitcoin on Antminer S23 Hydros at 9.5 J/TH and 1.05 PUE — the first sub-10 J/TH miner.

Machines implied

Frontier GPUs for Pearl, frontier ASICs for Bitcoin. A unit of account, not a census: a fleet of older hardware would need more of it.

Hardware capital

What it would cost to rebuild each network from scratch at today's best hardware — a replacement cost, not what was actually spent.

Issuance value per day

Coins minted each day valued at that day's price, not revalued at today's. This is the sell-side each market has to absorb.

Bitcoin on-chain volume

Estimated value transacted on-chain. Pearl has no equivalent figure yet — it needs a full-block walk from our own node, which is now synced and next on the list.

Where to next

Related pages that answer the questions this one raises.