Ore has once again sparked a mining boom, with a surge in transactions on the Solana chain.

Original Title: Solana users are spamming transactions to earn Ore tokens

Author: Matt Hougan, DL News

Compiled by: Mars Finance, Eason
Summary:

• Solana users are spending thousands of dollars to mine Ore tokens.
• Ore is not actually a proof-of-work cryptocurrency - but its design makes it look like a gamified airdrop.
• At peak times, over 16% of all transactions submitted to the Solana blockchain were mining transactions for Ore.

Solana users are submitting thousands of transactions to mine Ore------a new cryptocurrency that mimics the mechanisms of proof-of-work blockchains like Bitcoin to distribute tokens.

Ore launched its second version on Tuesday, and within 17 hours of its launch, users had submitted over 4 million transactions in an attempt to mine it.

To compete for Ore, these miners spent thousands of dollars worth of SOL tokens to process their mining transactions.

At peak times, over 16% of all transactions submitted to the Solana blockchain were mining transactions for Ore.

Proof-of-work is a way of processing blockchain transactions that requires miners to expend effort to solve puzzles. Those who successfully solve the puzzles gain the right to validate a set of transactions and receive some token rewards for their efforts.

Although Ore claims it uses proof-of-work to issue its Ore tokens, it does not actually validate transactions like a proof-of-work blockchain. After all, it is not a blockchain------it is a Solana token. Its PoW-style puzzles are more like gamified airdrops.

"Ore provides personalized computational challenges for each miner," the project explains on its website. "As long as you provide a valid solution to your puzzle, Ore guarantees you will receive a portion of the supply."

The tokens are priced at about $450 each on decentralized exchanges, bringing some miners thousands of dollars in net income.

Its creators claim it will become the "internet-native currency." However, with dollar-backed stablecoins like USDC already being popular, Ore may find it difficult to compete.

The phenomenon of scrambling for high-value Ore tokens has also caused issues for some users. About 8% of mining transactions have failed.

This is not the first time Ore has triggered a mining frenzy on Solana.

When the project launched its first version in April, the resulting transaction spam temporarily clogged Solana, preventing other users' transactions from being processed.

This time, the issue seems to have been resolved.

Ore was launched in April 2024, with a maximum supply of 21 million tokens------mimicking Bitcoin.

Its leader is an anonymous developer known as Hardhat Chad, who plays the role of a mining foreman.

"As long as you provide a valid solution to your puzzle, Ore guarantees you will receive a portion of the supply," its website states. "Since no miner can be censored by the network and all valid solutions are non-exclusive, hunger can be avoided."

"This has never been attempted in the history of cryptocurrency, and it is only possible due to the recent breakthroughs of high-performance blockchains like Solana."

Ore has no venture capital backing and won $50,000 at the Solana Renaissance Hackathon in May.