Documents

Overview

OYSTER is an independent project. It is not affiliated with Pearl Research Labs or Robinhood. It has three parts:

• Pearl Network is where compute becomes value. Pearl is an L1 blockchain based on Proof-of-Useful-Work, where mining is a by-product of matrix multiplication.
• Robinhood Chain is where OYSTER participation will be accounted, in smart contracts. It is an EVM-compatible Arbitrum L2 with gas paid in ETH.
• This site and its API make up the Reef dashboard and an integration layer that reads from a real pearld node and receives miner events.

Pearl mining stack

The Pearl monorepo ships these components:

The mining model comes from Proofs of Useful Work from Arbitrary Matrix Multiplication by Komargodski and Weinstein (arXiv:2504.09971). The target block time in pearld is 3 minutes 14 seconds.

Miner ↔ node communication

The GPU process talks only to pearl-gateway, using line-delimited JSON-RPC over a Unix socket (/tmp/pearlgw.sock, the default) or TCP on 127.0.0.1:8337 with MINER_RPC_TRANSPORT=tcp. The gateway exposes two methods:

→ {"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"getMiningInfo","params":{}}
← {"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"result":{ ...mining job... }}

→ {"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":2,"method":"submitPlainProof",
   "params":{"plain_proof":"<base64>","mining_job":{...}}}
← {"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":2,"result":"submitted"}

The gateway talks to pearld over HTTP JSON-RPC with Basic auth. It refreshes getblocktemplate about once a second, and when a miner submits a proof it generates the ZK certificate, assembles the block and calls submitblock.

vllm-miner ──getMiningInfo──▶ pearl-gateway ──getblocktemplate──▶ pearld
vllm-miner ──submitPlainProof─▶ pearl-gateway ──submitblock──────▶ pearld

Because the gateway only listens on loopback or a Unix socket and has no public stats endpoint, OYSTER does not connect to it remotely. Per-miner events are forwarded instead (see Connecting a real miner).

Rewards & mining address

• Pearl requires a Taproot mining address (mainnet HRP prl, e.g. prl1p…). Generate one with the Oyster wallet: prlctl … getnewaddress.
• Set it with --miningaddr on pearld or PEARLD_MINING_ADDRESS on the gateway. Block rewards go to this address on the Pearl L1.
• Coinbase outputs mature after 100 blocks, and the wallet lists them as immature until then and generate after.
• The base unit is the grain: 1 PRL = 10⁸ grains. Block subsidy follows a decaying emission curve defined in CalcBlockSubsidy.

Robinhood Chain

The site uses the network set by NEXT_PUBLIC_ROBINHOOD_NETWORK and reads it through NEXT_PUBLIC_ROBINHOOD_RPC_URL (an Alchemy endpoint in production), falling back to the public, rate-limited RPC. Browser wallets are found through EIP-6963, so MetaMask, Rabby and the Coinbase Wallet extension appear on the Reef when installed. If a wallet is on another network, the Reef offers a one-click switch, and the wallet adds Robinhood Chain if it doesn't know it yet. The Reef reads a connected wallet's address and ETH balance only: it sends no transactions and asks for no signatures. OYSTER never asks for private keys or seed phrases.

OYSTER miner API

All endpoints are GET, return JSON with cache-control: no-store, and include a source field (pearld, or none when no node is configured).

// Metric shape
{ "value": 1234 | "0x…" | null,
  "unit": "H/s",
  "provenance": "live" | "unavailable",
  "origin": "pearld:getnetworkhashps",
  "note": "Estimated from difficulty over the last 120 blocks" }

// MinerEvent shape
{ "id": "gw_…", "ts": "2026-09-28T10:00:00Z",
  "type": "connected" | "job_received" | "job_accepted" | "workload"
        | "proof_generated" | "proof_submitted" | "block_accepted"
        | "block_rejected" | "new_block" | "info" | "error" | "disconnected",
  "worker": "OYSTER-042", "message": "…",
  "origin": "gateway" | "pearld" }

Data provenance

Every metric on the Reef is backed by one of these sources, or it is marked N/A:

OYSTER never simulates figures. Without a pearld node (source: none), node and wallet figures are N/A and show a dash; only real events from a gateway forwarder appear.

Connecting a real miner

1. Run a Pearl node and miner following the Pearl README (wallet → pearld → pearl-gateway → vllm-miner).
2. Expose pearld's RPC to the OYSTER server only over TLS, for example through Pearl's Caddy proxy sidecar, with a dedicated RPC user.
3. Configure the OYSTER deployment:

MINER_DATA_SOURCE=pearld
PEARLD_RPC_URL=https://node.example.com:44107
PEARLD_RPC_USER=…
PEARLD_RPC_PASSWORD=…
PEARLD_MINING_ADDRESS=prl1p…
# optional, for rewards:
PEARL_WALLET_RPC_URL=https://node.example.com:44207
PEARL_WALLET_RPC_USER=…
PEARL_WALLET_RPC_PASSWORD=…
# for per-miner events:
MINER_INGEST_TOKEN=$(openssl rand -hex 32)

4. On each GPU host, pipe the gateway / miner logs into the forwarder:

pearl-gateway start 2>&1 | python3 integrations/gateway-forwarder/forward.py \
  --endpoint https://your-oyster-site/api/miner/events \
  --token "$MINER_INGEST_TOKEN" --worker OYSTER-042

The OYSTER token

OYSTER is an ERC-20 token on Robinhood Chain. It is the key to the Reef: holding and staking it is how a person takes part in the pearls the Reef's GPUs produce, whether or not they run a GPU themselves.

Holder mining

Pearl mining is done by GPUs. Holder mining lets OYSTER holders share in that work without owning one: the Reef's oysters mine Pearl blocks to a common Reef address, and the rewards are divided between the oysters who did the compute and the holders who staked OYSTER.

How it works

1. Stake. A holder deposits OYSTER into the Reef Vault contract on Robinhood Chain. Stake is measured over time, so a token staked for a whole epoch counts fully and one staked for half counts half.
2. Link a Pearl address. The holder sends a link transaction from their wallet on Robinhood Chain naming a Pearl Taproot address (prl1p…). The Link Registry records it against the sending address. This is where their PRL will be paid. No private key ever leaves the wallet.
3. The Reef mines. Oysters run the standard Pearl stack (pearld, pearl-gateway, vLLM miner) with PEARLD_MINING_ADDRESS set to the Reef address. Their gateway forwarder reports which worker found each accepted block.
4. Rewards mature. Every block the Reef wins pays its coinbase to the Reef address. After 100 confirmations the PRL is spendable and counts toward the current epoch.
5. Split and settle. At the end of each epoch the matured PRL is split into an operator share (to oysters, by accepted blocks) and a holder share (to stakers, by time-weighted stake). A Merkle root of every allocation is posted to the Reef Vault, and the PRL is paid on the Pearl chain in one batched transaction to the linked Taproot addresses.

Parameters

A holder's share

holderPRL(h) = epochPRL × holderShare × (stake(h) × timeStaked(h)) / Σ(stake × timeStaked)

oysterPRL(o) = epochPRL × operatorShare × blocksFound(o) / Σ blocksFound

Pearl blocks are found by chance, so a single oyster's reward varies a lot from day to day. Pooling through the Reef smooths that out for oysters and holders alike.

Contract interface (planned, not deployed)

// Planned, not deployed. No OYSTER contract exists on Robinhood Chain yet.

interface IReefVault {
    function stake(uint256 amount) external;
    function requestUnstake(uint256 amount) external;
    function completeUnstake() external;

    /// epoch => Merkle root of (holder, prlAmount) allocations
    function epochRoot(uint256 epoch) external view returns (bytes32);
    function stakeWeight(address holder, uint256 epoch) external view returns (uint256);

    event Staked(address indexed holder, uint256 amount);
    event UnstakeRequested(address indexed holder, uint256 amount, uint256 availableAt);
    event EpochSettled(uint256 indexed epoch, bytes32 root, uint256 holderPRL, uint256 operatorPRL);
}

interface ILinkRegistry {
    /// Records taprootAddress (prl1p…) for msg.sender; the transaction itself proves the holder.
    function link(string calldata taprootAddress) external;
    function pearlAddressOf(address holder) external view returns (string memory);
}

On the Reef

Account Services on the Reef shows a connected wallet's stake, its linked Pearl address, compute contributed, shares and estimated PRL for the current epoch. Every figure carries its source, like the rest of the office.

Risks

• Rewards depend on how many blocks the Reef wins, which depends on its GPUs and on the rest of the network.
• PRL rewards are paid on the Pearl chain, not on Robinhood Chain. A holder needs a Pearl wallet to receive them.
• The value of OYSTER and of PRL can fall, including to zero.
• Smart contracts can contain bugs. Only interact with the addresses published on this page.

Glossary

Oyster

A GPU miner in the OYSTER network (brand term). Not to be confused with Pearl's oyster wallet daemon.

Grain

Compute, the workload a GPU takes in (brand term). In the Pearl protocol, grain is also the base unit of PRL (1 PRL = 10⁸ grains).

Pearl

A mining reward: an accepted block paying PRL.

Reef

The network and the dashboard that watches it.

PoUW

Proof-of-Useful-Work: consensus work that is also useful computation, here matrix multiplication inside AI inference.

Sources

• Pearl monorepo (pearld, pearl-gateway, vLLM miner)
• pearl-gateway
• Pearl miner
• Proofs of Useful Work from Arbitrary Matrix Multiplication
• Pearl Research
• Robinhood Chain docs
• Connecting to Robinhood Chain
• EIP-6963: multi injected provider discovery