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ORE Protocol was introduced as a project in April 2024 on the Solana blockchain for advocating a fair and accessible mining system for everyone. It sought to resolve the centralization issues of traditional PoW, which depend on expensive hardware and large-scale mining pools, by introducing a new censorship-resistant PoW algorithm that anyone could mine. However, on October 22, 2025, ORE Protocol announced a major pivot to a probabilistic mining model based on a 5×5 grid, citing the fundamental value leakage inherent in traditional PoW.
The mechanism operates as follows:
Betting phase: In each round, participants bet SOL on one of 25 cells, with 1% used for protocol operations.
Selection phase: One cell is chosen randomly. Participants who bet on it become the winners and receive 1 ORE through either a single-winner or weighted model . In addition, there’s a a 1-in-625 chance the cell is designated a Motherlode Cell, triggering a payout from the Motherlode Pool, which serves as a ‘prize pool’ and accumulates 0.2 ORE per round when not activated.
Reward distribution: 90% of SOL bet on non-winning cells goes to the winner(s), while 10% is allocated to ORE buybacks. Of the repurchased ORE, 90% is burned, and 10% is distributed to ORE stakers.
Source : https://defillama.com/revenue/chain/solana
Thanks to this structure, ORE Protocol has achieved $1.05M in weekly revenue, ranking sixth in the Solana ecosystem, alongside established protocols such as launchpads, DEXs, and trading applications.
Source : https://defillama.com/revenue/chain/solana
Furthermore, as of November 4, ORE continues to burn around $100K worth of tokens daily, totaling 8,066 ORE (~$1M) over the past seven days, a scale notable even compared to Avalanche’s $140K AVAX burn during the same period.
A key innovation is the Refining Fee mechanism: when miners claim their ORE rewards, a 10% fee is charged and redistributed to miners who have not yet claimed. This design effectively reduces short-term sell pressure while fostering a dual incentive:
Maintaining immediate liquidity
Encouraging long-term holding of ORE
With this distinctive mechanism, ORE Protocol has become one of the most closely watched yield-based projects in the Solana ecosystem, even attracting recognition from the Solana Foundation.
Nevertheless, sustaining such momentum requires a delicate balance between incentive design and participant behavior. While the system’s intent to reduce short-term sell pressure is reasonable, a price downturn could trigger a surge of simultaneous claims and cash-outs, intensifying sell pressure. To prevent this risk, the protocol must secure long-term demand drivers and ensure baseline miner profitability beyond short-term token dynamics.
