The once-mythical ORE makes a comeback, surging 30 times in a single month this time

The mining protocol that once congested the Solana network has returned to the stage with a brand-new economic model after a year of silence.

By: Nicky, Foresight News

In 2024, ORE first debuted as the champion of the Solana Renaissance Hackathon, and its proof-of-work mechanism once caused network congestion on Solana due to excessive transaction volume.

After nearly a year of silence, the Solana ecosystem project ORE has returned to the market spotlight. This PoW mining protocol, once jokingly called "Solana Crasher," has come back with an upgraded protocol, not only driving the token price from $10 to over $600 in the past month, but also ranking second in daily protocol revenue on the Solana network—exceeding $1 million in a single day—second only to Pump.fun. This growth has been achieved almost entirely on DEXs.

ORE was created by the anonymous developer Hardhat Chad, whose identity model draws inspiration from Bitcoin's Satoshi Nakamoto tradition. In the early stages of the project, Hardhat Chad independently completed the development of ORE V1. Currently, the team includes members such as Neil Shahani, who are responsible for project development and community communication.

As the project developed, ORE established Regolith Labs as its official development entity.

In September 2024, ORE's development team Regolith Labs completed a $3 million seed round led by Foundation Capital, with participation from Solana Ventures and others. The funds are mainly used for team expansion and technology development.

The project team subsequently launched the V2 version. However, the early V2 version failed to completely resolve the incentive mismatch issue, resulting in low mining rewards and a prolonged slump in ORE's price.

After a year of exploration, the team realized that traditional PoW has a fundamental value leakage problem and decided to undertake a comprehensive overhaul. On October 22, 2025, ORE officially announced a redesign that allows for the accumulation of protocol revenue, achieves sustainable tokenomics, and accelerates the mission of creating a native store of value on Solana.

The new protocol introduces a 5×5 grid mining system. Each round lasts one minute, and miners occupy blocks in the grid by deploying SOL. At the end of each round, the system uses a secure random number generator to select a winning block, and miners on that block proportionally share all the SOL from the other 24 blocks. Additionally, one miner on the winning block has a chance to receive an extra 1 ORE reward (about once every three rounds). This design transforms the "zero-sum game" into "collective value redistribution," with the losers' SOL fully flowing to the winners, preventing value leakage.

The protocol also features a "Motherlode" jackpot mechanism, where 0.2 ORE is added to the prize pool each round and triggered with a 1:625 probability. If the reward is not triggered, the pool continues to accumulate until it is won by a lucky miner in a future round.

Economic Model: Deflationary Mechanism and Value Accumulation

The core innovation of the ORE protocol lies in its value capture mechanism. All mining rewards are subject to a 10% "refining fee" upon withdrawal, which is automatically distributed to other miners based on the proportion of unclaimed ORE they hold. The longer miners hold their mined ORE, the more ORE they receive.

More importantly, the protocol automatically collects 10% of SOL mining rewards as protocol revenue, which is used to buy back ORE tokens from the open market. In the past seven days, protocol revenue reached 21,529 SOL (about $3.6 million), driving the buyback of 10,381 ORE. Of the repurchased tokens, 90% are permanently "buried," while the remaining 10% are distributed to stakers.

This design allows ORE's net emissions to dynamically adjust between deflation and inflation. When protocol revenue is large enough, the entire system enters a deflationary state.

Currently, a total of 286,629 ORE are staked in the protocol, with TVL exceeding $150 million and an APR of 20.93%.

Tokenomics

ORE will maintain its existing maximum supply cap of 5 million tokens and a stable average issuance rate of about 1 ORE per minute. However, with the introduction of protocol revenue and the automatic burial mechanism, if protocol revenue is large enough, net issuance may fluctuate between limited inflation and unlimited deflation. According to Dune data, ORE has been in a deflationary state for five of the past seven days.

Ecological Recognition: Endorsement from Solana Official

Solana officials are particularly interested in the profitability of this mechanism. On the morning of November 10, Solana's official account quoted a tweet from ORE's Head of Growth, Neil Shahani, expressing surprise at its daily revenue surpassing $1 million.

Solana co-founder toly commented more directly: "Ore is money," and retweeted to emphasize its advantages such as "sustained miner incentives, staking yields coming from protocol revenue rather than inflation, and fees feeding back into the ecosystem."

ORE's integration is also expanding. Solana Mobile's Seeker device now supports the ORE application, allowing users to participate in mining directly from their phones, achieving a "mine anytime, anywhere" experience.

Community Response

Some community members are cautious about ORE's return. Some users point out that participating in the mining game itself may be a negative-sum activity, with real beneficiaries being ORE holders. The mining mechanism of ORE is essentially a "zero-sum game," with the losers' SOL fully flowing to the winners. As the number of participants increases, the mining cost (the SOL invested) rises significantly.

If miners choose to "mine and sell immediately," they must bear the price volatility risk under the high "refining fee"; while long-term holders can cover costs and even achieve net gains through refining fees, staking rewards, and deflationary appreciation. This realization has prompted more users to choose to hold tokens directly rather than participate in mining.