Pearl (PEARL) miners keep hearing about “the FP8 fork”. It refers to PIP-3, a proposal to change the math that Pearl mining proves, from integer multiplication to 8-bit floating point. If it activates as written, it is a hard fork and it narrows which GPUs can mine. This guide explains what PIP-3 says, why the Pearl team wants it, what is still undecided and what you should do today. Everything here reflects the proposal as of November 5, 2026.
How Pearl mining works today
Pearl is mined with proof of useful work: miners run noisy matrix multiplications on GPUs and prove them with a zero-knowledge proof (built on Plonky2 and STARKy). The mining certificates in use today, versions 1 and 2, prove integer multiplications. According to the PIP-3 text, operands are committed as INT8 with one bit of headroom, effectively INT7. Kryptex Pool describes it as INT7 × INT7 into an INT32 result.
Version 2 came from PIP-2, which made mining work better on mixture-of-experts models. Both versions are integer protocols, and integer math runs on almost any modern Nvidia GPU, which is why cards from the RTX 30 series up can mine today.
What PIP-3 changes
PIP-3, titled “FP PoUW Certificates”, introduces a version 3 certificate built on floating point:
- FP8 multiplication. Input operands arrive as BF16, are quantized to FP8 in the E4M3 format, then multiplied with an FP32 accumulator. Quantization is row-wise with a BF16 scale so values fit the E4M3 range (largest value 448). Our explainer what is FP8 covers the format.
- Low-rank noise. The noise that turns the work into a lottery ticket is low rank (for example rank 16) and is derived deterministically from the miner’s commitments using keyed BLAKE3.
- Tiles as tickets. Lottery tickets come from tiles of the noised product. Winning tiles get extra statistical checks under a “Jackpot Policy”, which is still marked TBD in the draft.
- New mma_type field. Type 0 is the existing INT7 × INT7 to INT32 path. Type 1 is FP8 × FP8 to FP32.
Why Pearl wants floating point
The spec’s motivation is direct: “the overwhelming majority of AI models are natively floating-point”. Real inference engines already run FP8 matmuls on recent hardware. An integer protocol makes a miner convert that work into a format the model does not use. A floating-point protocol lets the mining run on the same kind of math the model needs, which the spec describes as a near-perfect “Two-For-One” with much smaller overhead than the INT protocol.
According to Kryptex Pool, the founders estimated at a September 15 AMA that the FP protocol adds about 5 to 7% extra cost per matmul, and less across a full model run. Those are the founders’ estimates, not published benchmarks.
The catch: declared hardware
Floating-point math is not bit-exact across chips. Different GPUs can return bitwise-different results for the same FP8 multiplication. A blockchain needs every verifier to reach exactly the same answer, so PIP-3 does not allow a tolerance. The spec explains why: a tolerance would invite grinding attacks, where a miner nudges results within the allowed error to get extra lottery tickets.
Instead, the miner declares its hardware in advance, and the verifier reproduces the computation bit-exactly as that hardware would. That only works for hardware the protocol has modeled, so devices are whitelisted. In the draft the device field has two values: 0 for Hopper and 1 for Blackwell.
The spec also notes the result is lossy: FP8 is not bit-exact to the true product. It reports that tested models showed no noticeable accuracy difference.
What happens at activation
- Version 3 certificates become mandatory. Versions 1 and 2 are rejected.
- It is a hard fork: every node, pool and miner must upgrade, or it ends up on the wrong chain.
- Cards outside the device whitelist can no longer produce valid certificates.
Until activation, nothing changes. According to Kryptex Pool, all current cards keep mining until then, Kryptex supports every fork, and the RTX 5090 and RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell are confirmed to keep mining.
Status as of November 5, 2026
| Item | Status |
|---|---|
| PIP-3 status | Draft (created July 30, 2026, author “Pearl Team”) |
| Promotion to Proposed | PR #13, opened September 14, 2026, still open |
| Activation height | Not set |
| Reference miner, test vectors, deployment | All TBD in the draft |
| Ada support (PR #16) | Proposed by the community, not merged |
| AMD RDNA4 support (PR #18) | Proposed by the community, not merged |
| Latest node release | pearld v1.5.5 (October 28, 2026), not the fork |
PR #16, opened October 27, would add an Ada (sm_89) device covering RTX 40 series, RTX 6000 Ada, L4 and L40S, and asks to activate together with PIP-3. Its author says the Rust reference matches RTX 4070 Ti SUPER silicon on 1,662,976 measurements. PR #18, opened October 31, proposes an AMD RDNA4 device (RX 9060, RX 9070, Radeon AI PRO R9700). How proposals move through these stages is covered in Pearl Improvement Proposals explained.
What miners should do now
- Keep mining. Your current card works until activation, and no activation height exists yet.
- Plan purchases carefully. If you are buying or renting hardware for the long term, the spec as written favors Hopper and Blackwell. Compare options in the best GPUs for Pearl mining and run the numbers with Pearl mining profitability.
- Watch the sources. Follow the PIPs repository, the node releases page and your pool’s announcements. A fork needs a node release, so a release note is your real signal.
- Keep your payout simple. The fork does not change addresses. Your coins and your prl1p payout address stay the same. Oyster’s miner mode gives you one fixed payout address to paste into your pool; see the mining payout wallet guide.
Frequently asked questions
What is PIP-3?
PIP-3, titled 'FP PoUW Certificates', is a Pearl Improvement Proposal that moves Pearl mining from integer matrix math to floating point. Operands are quantized to FP8 (E4M3) and multiplied with an FP32 accumulator. It adds a version 3 mining certificate and would be a hard fork.
When does the Pearl FP8 fork activate?
There is no date. As of November 5, 2026, PIP-3 is still a Draft, no activation height is set, and the reference miner, test vectors and deployment sections are marked TBD. According to Kryptex Pool, the founders said they will fork only once they are confident in its security.
Will my GPU stop mining Pearl after the FP8 fork?
Not before activation: until the fork activates, every card that mines today keeps mining. As the spec is written, only Nvidia Hopper and Blackwell devices are whitelisted for version 3 certificates. A community proposal (PR #16) asks to add Ada cards such as the RTX 4090, but it is not merged.
Does the FP8 fork add FP4 mining?
No. PIP-3 mentions future formats such as MXFP8 and NVFP4, but according to Kryptex Pool FP4 is not part of this fork.
