All about PI and PI Network
PI, is the native token of PI Network, and remains arguably the biggest upcoming cryptocurrency. It has been initially announced for more than four years.
What is PI Network?
PI Network is a digital currency project, aimed towards making cryptocurrency mining accessible, as mining of BTC is a strenuous effort to many of the users either due to the cost of the mining facilities or the requirement of high specs hardware like ASIC. In other words, PI can be mined using desktop and mobile phones.
The PI Network was developed by a team of Stanford University graduates, enabling users to mine PI coins, validating transactions on a distributed record. Unlike the nodes on Bitcoin Network, that uses PoW protocols, PI nodes use an algorithm based on the Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP). PI nodes validate transactions on a distributed ledger and reach a consensus on the order of new transactions that the ledger records.
In SCP, PI nodes form security circles/groups, of three to five trusted people known to each of the network’s users. Security circles build a global trust network that prevents fraudulent transactions, as transactions can only be validated on the shared ledger if the trusted nodes approve them.
The PI mining app acts as a cryptocurrency wallet, linked to a user’s mobile number. Like any other blockchains, the Pi blockchain will allow external wallets to hold PI coins and submit transactions directly to the blockchain. However, unlike other blockchains, its developers have not yet released its source code.
There is still no indication on when the so-called ‘pioneers’ who mine PI are ever going to benefit from their coins. There are estimated to have around 35 million pioneers. As of April, 2023, there are still no coins officially being traded, and the network’s mainnet has not been launched. This makes it difficult to establish the worth of PI coin.
It is important to distinguish Pi Network’s coin from the Pi Network DeFi token, which runs on the Binance (BNB) blockchain and is available for trading on the PancakeSwap (CAKE) decentralised exchange (DEX).
With branding based on the mathematical constant π, Phase 1 of the project launched on Pi Day, 14 March 2019, with a free PI mining app. By June, the network had more than 100,000 active users. A year later, when Phase 2 launched, there were more than 3.5 million users.
The app started running advertisements in May 2020 to provide a source of financing for the project.
On 15 March 2022, the Pi Network announced its user base had climbed to 33 million, more than double the 14 million users in March 2021.
As with other cryptos such as bitcoin, Pi was designed to undergo regular ‘halving’ to protect its scarcity. Halving is when the number of coins a miner receives for processing new transactions is reduced by half. This usually occurs when a certain milestone is reached.
PI’s mining rate halved from 1.6 Ï€ to 0.8 Ï€ an hour when it reached 100,000 users, halved again to 0.4 Ï€ an hour when it reached 1 million and halved again to 0.2 Ï€ when it reached 10 million users. The rewards will continue to halve, reaching zero when the network reaches one billion users.
In November 2021, the development team started releasing tech and product updates. These included its pilot Know Your Customer (KYC) app and Block Explorer.
The KYC app pilot, having been tested with community moderators, was deployed “on a limited basis” to start the process of verifying pioneers and to improve the app’s usability and machine automation. The Pi Block Explorer, which helps pioneers see the transaction history and explore transaction data such as sender, receiver and amount, was also deployed.
The Pi wallet was also updated, enabling the developers to create push notifications to alert pioneers when they receive a payment on the blockchain, and fixing a bug for Android users who could not see their wallet passphrase.
Pi Network launched an “enclosed mainnet” on 28 December 2021 to continue testing ahead of its full launch. It also introduced a new mining mechanism and “infrastructure to provide pioneers a simulation of the upcoming mining formula”.
The KYC app was initially launched to a few thousand pilot participants for testing, with 100 pioneers permitted per country or region.
On Pi Day last year (14 March 2022), the development team announced two more updates, the rollout of a mass KYC solution, and a new PI mining mechanism that allows more diverse mining rewards. These actions could potentially enhance the value to advertisers.
The developers said that they were rolling out KYC “on a large scale” to eligible users on 16 March.
PI remains in pre-release mode
At the time of writing (6 April 2023), there is still no way to officially add the PI coin to your portfolio. Users who have mined the PI cryptocurrency will only be able to withdraw or exchange their coins when the mainnet blockchain is fully opened. PI cannot be transferred during the testing phase.
According to the project’s website, this is to prevent fake accounts from accumulating coins. Wallet balances are expected to be honoured when PI shifts from development mode to become a fully live network.
What is the future of PI coin?
Currently, debate continues as to whether Pi Network is a well-intentioned initiative or a scam. If it is a scam, it is not a traditional one in the fashion of a Ponzi scheme, as users are not investing their money, they are investing time on their mobile phones.
However, early adopters are accumulating the PI crypto in anticipation that the price will rise sharply after the network goes live. Although the coin’s mining rate has been reduced by halving, users can increase their mining rate by connecting with other active miners. New users can only join the Pi Network if they have a referral code from another user.
The project’s developers claim that security on the Pi Network is enhanced by these personal networks, encouraging users to bring in friends and family, which has fuelled scepticism that it could be a multi-level marketing (MLM) or pyramid scheme. However, it is worth noting that users can only earn coins from their own direct networks, and not from their connections’ networks, as with an MLM scheme.
Pi Network has continued to insist it is not running an initial coin offering (ICO) or crowdfunding sale, and coins that can be mined on the enclosed mainnet currently stay in the ecosystem.
On 11 March 2022, the developers said that the Enclosed Network period would give pioneers time to pass KYC verification, tweak the mainnet and add more apps. They did not say when the network will become open, only that “the Enclosed Network period is in line with Pi’s vision of a utility-based ecosystem and its iterative philosophy”.
More than a year later, on 14 March 2023, Pi co-founder Nicolas Kokkalis announced that the platform was looking to migrate people who had passed KYC checks' accounts to the mainnet,
PI coin price prediction: 2023 to 2025
The cryptocurrency data provider CoinMarketCap listed the value of the coin at around $26.50 on 6 April 2023, down from $38.20 as of 17 March, down from $63.50 on 3 February, when it had lost more than 60% of its value since the beginning of the year.
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