Where new PRL comes from

No company prints PRL, and nobody can decide to make more.

New coins appear in exactly one place: the first transaction of every block, which pays the miner. How many appear is fixed by a formula in every node’s software, and any block that pays itself more is rejected.

How are new coins created?

Every block opens with a coinbase transaction. It has no real inputs. It simply creates coins out of nothing and pays them to the miner, along with the fees from the block’s other transactions.

The brand-new part is called the subsidy. Together with the fees, it makes up the block reward.

Those new coins come with a waiting period. They can’t be spent until 100 more blocks have been added on top, in case their block is dropped in a race with another.

How many coins per block?

Block 1 created about 3,229.64 PRL. Every block since has created a little less than the one before. Right now each block creates about 2,238.33 PRL, not counting fees.

The decline is smooth and slow. By block 650,226, about four years in, a block will create about 807.41 PRL. By block 1,000,000, about 501.41 PRL.

What does the curve look like?

The easiest way to see Pearl’s schedule is through the total created so far. After block h, the most PRL that can exist is:

$$\text{issued}(h) = 2.1\ \text{billion} \times \frac{h}{h + 650{,}226}$$

Total PRL after block h

Plug in a few heights and the shape appears:

• At block 0, the fraction is 0. Nothing exists.
• At block 650,226, the fraction is exactly one half: 1.05 billion PRL.
• At three times that height, three quarters exist. At nine times, nine tenths.
• However far you go, the fraction never quite reaches 1.

So the total climbs quickly at first, then flattens out, forever approaching 2.1 billion PRL. Drag across the chart to see the reward and the total at any height.

At the snapshot taken for this guide (2026-10-20, block 130,827), about 351,751,674 PRL had been issued: 16.75 percent of the maximum. The live figure is 351.8 million PRL.

Make a guess

After block 650,226, about four years in, what fraction of all PRL will exist?

Think of your answer first, then check it.

Reveal the answer

Answer Exactly half.

Put h = 650,226 into the formula and the fraction is 650,226 ÷ (650,226 + 650,226), which is one half. The second half takes far longer: three quarters exist only at three times that height, about twelve years in.

Why “about four years”?

Because the number 650,226 is built from the block time. It’s the number of 194-second blocks in four 365-day years, rounded down.

That’s also why the steady heartbeat matters. If blocks run a little fast, the schedule runs a little early in calendar time. The formula itself only counts blocks.

The exact per-block formula

Each block’s subsidy is the difference between two points on the curve, worked out in whole grains:

$$\text{subsidy}(h) = \left\lfloor \frac{S \cdot C}{(h + C)(h - 1 + C)} \right\rfloor \text{ grains}$$

Here S is 2.1 billion PRL written in grains, and C is 650,226. The genesis block, at height 0, is a special case that pays nothing. Rounding down each block leaves a tiny bit of dust unissued, so the real total stays just under the curve.

Is there a limit?

Yes: 2.1 billion PRL, a hundred times Bitcoin’s 21 million. The curve gets ever closer and never touches it.

Each PRL divides into 100,000,000 grains, so even tiny amounts can be sent. Inside every transaction, amounts are counted in grains.

Was anything created at launch?

No. Pearl’s genesis block has a single output worth zero, and the rules say it can never be spent.

Every PRL that exists was created by a block’s coinbase transaction and paid to whoever mined that block.

Maximum supply

2.1 billion PRL

Block 1 created

3,229.64 PRL

Half issued by

block 650,226

about four years

Halvings

none

a little less every block

Spendable after

100 blocks

Smallest unit

1 grain

100,000,000 per PRL

That’s the money side of Pearl. The next pages turn to you: the keys that let you own coins, and the wallet that keeps them.