According to its official website, Pi Network is a cryptocurrency project that aims to make mining accessible to everyday users through a mobile app. It was officially launched on March 14, 2019, and has grown into a global community of tens of millions of users. The network claimed to use an energy-efficient mining method that incorporates KYC (Know Your Customer) verification to ensure security and fairness.
Pi Network's vision is to build an inclusive peer-to-peer ecosystem powered by Pi, which is the network's currency. It recently launched its Open Network last February 20, 2025, enabling external connectivity and integration with exchanges and other blockchain systems. The project is led by a team of Stanford PhDs, Dr. Nikolas Kokkalis and Dr. Chengdiao Fan whose main aim is to combine blockchain technology with social sciences.
Pi Network has already amassed millions of users all around the world. At the core of this project is a blockchain network that relies on its community who they call, 'Pioneers'. As Pioneers mine through their mobile app, they are rewarded with Pi which is the network's currency.
This reward mechanism, according to their website, is "an innovative mobile mining mechanism" given to Pioneers for their "diverse contributions and digital citizenship in a clear, meritocratic and decentralized way". But is this really what is happening right now as the network thrives with their open network launch? Let's find out.
Pi Network just launched its open network last February 20, 2025, enabling external connectivity and integration with other blockchain systems. The launch was welcomed and celebrated by many Pioneers all around the world. Along with this launch, Pi has accumulated an actual value making it tradeable in some exchanges like BitGet and OKX.
As of this writing, Pi's price is trading at the range of $0.6 to $1 but prior to this, Pi's price is trading at a range of $1.5 to $1.8, with an all time high of $2.98 last February 25, 2025. Its all time low is $0.4012 which happened last April 5, 2025. It is currently the #26 in Coinmarketcap's ranking of top cryptocurrency in the world.
Pi's circulating supply is at 6.7B and it is expected to increase once more users will be migrated to mainnet. You can know more about Pi's statistics in Coinmarketcap.
The primary mechanism to earn Pi is to download the Pi Network app, create an account and click the mining button once a day. That is all you need to do to earn Pi. Due to this simplicity, some Pioneers who are very loyal to Pi are calling this as "free money", especially now that Pi has a real value after its Open Network launch. However, that is not really the case if you will dig deeper into the project. We will discuss this part later in another article but for now let's just focus on how to get the Pi that you earn from clicking that button.
In order for you to truely own the Pi that you earn from mining you need to pass a KYC process. You might think this is just very easy to do as we always do this before availing the products and services of any fintech companies like GCash, Maya or GoTyme. We also go through this process if you open an account with different exchanges like OKX, Binance or Coinbase.
Passing the KYC is just a piece of cake or should I say just a piece of Pi. Basically, the process is somehow the same from any of these companies. All you need to do is to submit your documents that proved your identity and then do the liveness check then you will just have to wait for few minutes to see the result. Most of the time, we can easily passed this process and get approved in just around 15-30 minutes.
Unfortunately for Pioneers, Pi's KYC process is somehow different from those fintech & exchange companies as they are very hard to pass. Pi has this 9 steps that you will need to complete before they will migrate your Pi to mainnet. All of the steps are easy to comply with except for the KYC part which could take days to years to get approved. This is the main source of the controversies and speculations because many of its users have already passed the KYC but were not migrated yet to mainnet. Some say that the Pi Core Team (the governing body of Pi Network), might be intentionally holding off other Pioneer's Pi to prevent more supply from flowing into the market, thereby affecting the price of Pi in the market.
The migration process is done by the Pi Core Team but unlike with other crypto project, Pi migration is not a one time process. It could happen multiple times in an unpredictable and seemingly chaotic, complicated process.
Pi Core Team have already initiated a migration process before, which allow the migration of some of its users who already passed the KYC. However, there are still many Pioneers who already passed the KYC but are not migrated yet. Pi Core Team has put these users to 'on-queue for migration' status. Many of these users are stucked in this status for years already. This is one of the main source of suspicion about Pi Core Team's true intention in holding-off Pioneer's Pi to control its supply in the market.
However, it seems that Pi Core Team has actually started doing the migration few weeks ago because some users reported that their Pi were migrated to their wallet. However, after a few days, Pi Core Team reverted this process and returned the Pi of these Pioneers back to the Pi App. Pi Core Team did not immediately release a statement about this incident hurting Pi's reputation.
Eventually, Pi Core Team released a statement about this issue after many Pioneers expressed their anger and disappointment towards Pi and its core team. The statement acknowledged the issue and the reason they gave for such action is due to hacking incidents. The core team reverted the process and apply additional security measures to the wallets by requiring Pioneers to do a two-factor authentication (2FA).
For some Pioneers this is a good response, but for others this started a lot of suspicion and distrusts to the Pi Core Team and to the whole project in general. Some are even calling the whole thing as a scam. Some said that the core team can actually access the Pioneer's wallet despite of it being a non-custodial type. However, in defense to the Pi Core Team, it was stated in the mainnet checklist that there is 14-day grace period after the mined Pi is migrated to the mainnet. This 14 day grace period will still allow the Pi Core Team to access their Pi.
One of the biggest problem with Pi Core Team right now is its lack of transparency and communication to its millions of users. The team is quiet about all the concerns raised by many Pioneers about KYC.
Pioneers on the other hand are feeling anxious of being left out. After all, they have spent 6 years of pressing that button everyday and watched ads to support the project. They have also entrusted their sensitive information to the Pi Network. So, I think most of these Pioneers just wanted some clarity and assurance.
Some of the questions raised are also valid but left unanswered. For example, what is the Core Team's plan for those who did not undergo the KYC process? When are they going to migrate those who are on-queue/tentative approval? What are they going to do with all those Pi earned by those who did not KYC?
All those questions are valid and should be answered by the core team to reduce the suspicion towards the project. Not answering these questions for a long time does not actually mean that the project is a scam but it will definitely hurt the reputation of the project.
All those questions are valid and should be answered by the core team to reduce the suspicion towards the project. Not answering these questions for a long time does not actually mean that the project is a scam but it will definitely hurt the reputation of the project.
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