Evan Van Ness: Pearl Could Be Bigger Than Bitcoin (PEARL Thesis)

Evan Van Ness sees an opportunity bigger than Bitcoin hiding inside the AI boom, and he's convinced Pearl is the project positioned to capture it.

He joins Andy and Rob to unpack his thesis for Pearl, where the computation behind AI inference could also secure a monetary network. They explore how useful proof of work could reshape data center economics, why adoption could create a powerful flywheel, and what still needs to happen for that vision to become reality.

Evan Van Ness is an investor at Starbloom Capital. He previously held a leadership role at the Ethereum Foundation and has spent more than a year focused on Pearl.

The Rollup is where the leaders of digital assets and finance converge. Live from the financial capital of the world.

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

01:21 Pearl Could Be Bigger Than Bitcoin

03:47 Bitcoin's Ossification And Security Budget Problem

06:36 Everyone Wanted Proof Of Work Useful

08:51 Pearl Mines Through Matrix Multiplication

11:00 Near Zero Overhead Mining Alongside Inference

15:41 Pearl's Useful Work Is Under 1%

17:49 Everything Useless Must Become Useful Work

20:20 A Pearl Flywheel For Cheaper Inference

24:21 Midterms Threaten Data Center Buildouts

27:40 Frontier Labs Already Know About Pearl

31:00 Pearl At 3.7B FDV Versus Bitcoin

35:20 A Pearl Fork Aimed At Payments

Guest Socials

Evan Van Ness X: https://x.com/evan_van_ness

Evan Van Ness website: https://www.evanvanness.com

Pearl Research Labs X: https://x.com/prlnet

Pearl Website: https://pearlresearch.ai

Partners:

Space and Time is providing verifiable data infrastructure for onchain finance. A decentralized database, blockchain indexer, and ZK coprocessor in one, giving DeFi protocols,stablecoins, and tokenized assets accurate, provable data.

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Zama is an open source cryptography company that builds state-of-the-art Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) solutions for blockchain.

Learn more here: https://www.zama.org/

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𝗗𝗜𝗦𝗖𝗟𝗔𝗜𝗠𝗘𝗥: 𝘐𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘳𝘺𝘱𝘵𝘰𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘋𝘦𝘍𝘪 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘪𝘯𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘬𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘶𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘩𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘬, 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘳, 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮 𝘧𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦. 𝘈𝘵 𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘵𝘩𝗶𝘴 𝘤𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝘭, 𝘸𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘺 𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘳 𝘧𝘦𝘦 𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘴𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗼𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽, 𝘪𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘸𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘴𝘂𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳. 𝘞𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝗿𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘥𝘂𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘪𝗼𝘯𝗮𝗹 𝘤𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘵𝗳𝗼𝘳𝘮, 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘦 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘴 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘥𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘦. 𝘞𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘱𝘳𝗼𝘧𝗲𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘴 𝘰𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘥𝘷𝘪𝘴𝗼𝘳𝘴.