Israeli Crypto Startup Pearl Surges 520% as Coinbase Eyes Token Listing

Tel Aviv-based research lab Pearl has emerged as an unexpected star at major international crypto events, including Crypto Week in Seoul and the Token2049 conference in Singapore. While maintaining a low public profile at home, the startup has generated significant global enthusiasm, backed by unprecedented financial metrics.

Launched in late April, the digital currency developed by Pearl has surged by approximately 520% over a three-month period, pushing its circulating market capitalization to $710 million. Market momentum intensified further after major US cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase announced its intention to list the token for trading.

Behind this rapid rise lies a strategy of quiet growth away from the spotlight. According to corporate filings, Pearl has raised approximately $130 million to date. This figure includes $55 million secured across two funding rounds from prominent venture capital firms such as Lightspeed, Ribbit Capital, and Square Peg, alongside an additional $75 million dedicated fund raised from investors to finance the acquisition of advanced Nvidia graphics processing units.

Pearl's ambitious vision aims to resolve a historical vulnerability in the cryptocurrency sector: massive energy waste in blockchain mining. Instead of miners consuming vast amounts of electricity to solve redundant mathematical equations solely for network security, Pearl's protocol replaces these computations with necessary processing tasks required to run artificial intelligence models on Nvidia hardware.

Founded in February 2025, the company was established by a team of academics and experienced entrepreneurs, including Prof. Omri Weinstein, a Princeton PhD and former senior executive at Vast Data and Nvidia; Prof. Ilan Komargodski, a Weizmann Institute and NTT Labs alumnus; and Idan Sugarman, co-founder of Quant-Health. Pearl employs approximately 35 people, including renowned scientists such as Prof. Rafael Pass, and collaborates with US cloud providers like Together AI, which offers customers significant discounts on AI model execution in exchange for token accumulation.

Despite widespread enthusiasm, some market observers maintain a cautious stance. Critics argue that the token's soaring valuation reflects exceptionally high future expectations before Pearl's commercial model has achieved mass adoption in the cloud and artificial intelligence markets. Investors are currently awaiting the scheduled Coinbase listing, which will serve as a crucial test of the Israeli venture's ability to lead the next wave of the blockchain industry.