The emergence of the Pearl (PRL) cryptocurrency has renewed interest in GPU mining. Unlike traditional Proof-of-Work, Pearl utilizes a Proof-of-Useful-Work mechanism based on matrix multiplication, which is also essential for AI model training.
According to Hashrate.no data from November 2, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 is currently the most profitable card, generating $8.57 daily, or $7.33 after electricity costs. The RTX 4090 yields $5.65 in net daily profit, while the RTX 5080 and RTX 5070 Ti offer approximately $3.77 and $3.09 respectively.
In terms of energy efficiency, the RTX 4090 and RTX 4070 Ti lead with 1.10 and 1.08 terahashes per second. AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 also support the algorithm but trail Nvidia solutions in performance-to-power ratios.
The Pearl project has partnered with Together AI to integrate crypto mining with AI workloads, allowing users to run the Gemma model via the Pearl infrastructure. However, rising network difficulty and price volatility pose risks to long-term profitability.
Market conditions remain constrained by the broader AI boom, which has already strained GPU supply. Nvidia has previously noted difficulties in meeting demand for gaming processors due to memory chip shortages, limiting the potential for a new mining-driven hardware crisis.
