Last Updated: October 23, 2026
Pi Network is a cryptocurrency project that lets users earn its PI token by tapping a button in a mobile app once a day, without the energy-intensive mining used by Bitcoin. It was launched on March 14, 2019 by two Stanford PhD graduates, Nicolas Kokkalis and Chengdiao Fan, and opened its mainnet to outside trading on February 20, 2025. PI now trades on exchanges including Kraken, OKX, Bitget, Gate and MEXC at about $0.078, according to CoinMarketCap data on October 23, 2026, roughly 97% below its all-time high of about $2.98 in February 2025.
Is Pi Network legit? It is a real, operating blockchain with identifiable founders, registered companies and a token that trades on regulated exchanges, so it is not a fake app that disappeared with users’ money. But it carries serious risks: its Core Team and Foundation control a large share of the supply, millions of locked tokens unlock every month, Binance and Coinbase do not list it, and police in Vietnam have warned that its referral model resembles a Ponzi scheme. Treat PI as a high-risk speculative asset.
Key Takeaways
- How it works: users “mine” PI by checking in daily in the Pi app; the network actually runs on a fork of the Stellar Consensus Protocol, not proof of work.
- Mainnet and trading: the Open Network launched on February 20, 2025, after more than three years of an enclosed mainnet; Kraken added PI for trading on March 13, 2026, opening access to US users, subject to geographic restrictions.
- Price: PI trades near $0.078, down about 61% over the past year and about 97% below its February 2025 peak; it set a record low of about $0.071 on July 14, 2026.
- Supply: only about 11.3 billion of a maximum 100 billion PI is circulating; the rest is locked, unmigrated or held in Core Team and Foundation allocations.
- Users: Pi reports more than 60 million engaged users, 18.1 million fully verified (KYC) users and more than 300 mainnet apps.
- Main risks: concentrated control of supply and validators, monthly token unlocks, no listing on Binance or Coinbase and regulator warnings in Vietnam.
Pi Network at a Glance
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Token | PI |
| Launched | March 14, 2019 (Pi Day) |
| Founders | Nicolas Kokkalis and Chengdiao Fan |
| Open Mainnet | February 20, 2025 |
| Price | ~$0.078 (October 23, 2026) |
| Market Cap | ~$880 million (69th largest on CoinMarketCap) |
| Circulating Supply | ~11.29 billion PI |
| Max Supply | 100 billion PI |
| All-Time High | ~$2.98 to $2.99 (February 26, 2025) |
| All-Time Low | ~$0.071 (July 14, 2026) |
| Engaged Users | 60 million+ |
| Fully KYC-Verified Users | 18.1 million |
| Mainnet Apps | 300+ (Pi’s figure) |
Sources: CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko on October 23, 2026; user and app figures from the Pi Network blog, October 15, 2026. CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko report slightly different all-time highs and lows.
How Pi Network Works
Mobile “mining.” Pi does not use proof of work. Users open the app once every 24 hours to start a mining session, and the app calculates their rewards once a day. The network itself runs on a fork of the Stellar Consensus Protocol, a voting-based system in which trusted nodes agree on transactions. Unlike Bitcoin, whose rewards halve every four years, Pi’s base mining rate declines continuously according to a formula in its whitepaper.
Roles. Pi rewards four kinds of participation:
- Pioneers check in daily to mine.
- Contributors build “security circles” of people they trust, which helps the network identify real users.
- Ambassadors invite new users and earn a referral bonus.
- Nodes run Pi’s node software on a computer.
Lockups. Users can lock part of their balance for two weeks, six months, one year or three years in exchange for a higher mining rate. Lockups cannot be reversed.
KYC and migration. Mined PI only becomes transferable after a user passes identity verification (KYC) and migrates the balance to mainnet. Pi set a final deadline of March 14, 2025 for its KYC grace period; users who missed it lost most of their unmigrated balance, except PI mined in the six months before migration. By March 2026, about 16.6 million users had migrated to mainnet.
Pi Browser and Wallet. Pi apps run inside the Pi Browser, and the official wallet is at wallet.pinet.com, opened from within the browser. The app ecosystem includes Pi App Studio, a no-code tool launched in June 2025, and Pi Network Ventures, a fund of up to $100 million in PI and US dollars that Pi announced in May 2025.
Pi Network Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| March 14, 2019 | Pi Network launches with its whitepaper and mobile app |
| March 14, 2020 | Testnet launches |
| December 28, 2021 | Enclosed Mainnet launches; PI cannot be traded outside the network |
| February 20, 2025 | Open Network launches; PI starts trading on OKX, Bitget, Gate, MEXC and others |
| February 26, 2025 | PI reaches its all-time high near $3 |
| March 14, 2025 | Final deadline of the KYC grace period |
| May 14, 2025 | Pi Network Ventures announced with up to $100 million |
| June 28, 2025 | Pi App Studio launches |
| August 2025 | Valour lists a PI exchange-traded product in Sweden |
| November 2025 | Pi publishes a MiCA white paper for trading on OKX’s EU platform |
| March 13, 2026 | Kraken lists PI; the price jumps about 30% to near $0.29 |
| July 14, 2026 | PI sets a record low of about $0.071 |
| October 16, 2026 | Protocol 28 upgrade goes live on mainnet |
| November 17 to 19, 2026 | Pi Ecosystem Summit (online) |
Sources: Pi Network whitepaper and blog, Kraken, CoinDesk, Valour and the Pi MiCA white paper.
PI Tokenomics and Supply
| Allocation | Share of 100 Billion PI |
|---|---|
| Community mining rewards | 65% |
| Core Team | 20% |
| Pi Foundation reserve | 10% |
| Liquidity | 5% |
Source: Pi Network blog, April 17, 2025.
All 100 billion PI were created at launch, but only about 11.3% is circulating. The Core Team allocation unlocks at the same pace as the community’s mined coins, according to the whitepaper, and much of the mined supply sits in user lockups: about 6.2 billion PI was locked as of July 2026, according to data from PiScan, an independent block explorer. Between about 85 million and 270 million PI has unlocked each month in 2025 and 2026, adding steady selling pressure.
Supply figures differ between data providers. CoinMarketCap counts a total supply of 100 billion PI, while CoinGecko uses about 17.4 billion, which is why their fully diluted valuations range from about $1.4 billion to $7.8 billion. PiScan also attributed about 82.8 billion PI to wallets it linked to the Core Team in March 2025; Pi has not confirmed that attribution.
Where Can You Buy and Sell PI?
PI trades on centralized exchanges that have passed Pi’s business verification, including Kraken, OKX, Bitget, Gate, MEXC, LBank and Pionex, according to Pi’s official KYB list. Kraken’s listing in March 2026 gave US users access, subject to geographic restrictions. In Europe, Pi published a MiCA white paper in November 2025 for trading on OKX’s Malta-licensed platform, and Valour offers a PI exchange-traded product on Sweden’s Spotlight Stock Market.
Binance and Coinbase do not list PI. A Binance community vote in February 2025 showed strong support, but Binance said the results were for reference only, and Bybit’s CEO refused to list the token. For a comparison of the main platforms, see our ranking of the best crypto exchanges.
Is Pi Network Legit or a Scam?
| Points in Pi’s Favor | Concerns |
|---|---|
| Identifiable founders with Stanford PhDs and registered companies in the US, the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands | The Core Team and Foundation control a large share of the supply |
| A live mainnet with a token traded on regulated exchanges, including Kraken | PiScan counted only 43 nodes and 3 validators on mainnet in March 2025, and Pi has not published an official validator count |
| A MiCA white paper filed for trading in the EU | Monthly unlocks keep adding PI to circulation |
| More than 18 million identity-verified users | Not listed on Binance or Coinbase; Bybit’s CEO called it a scam |
| Mainnet upgrades continuing in 2026 | Vietnam’s police warned its model has hallmarks of a Ponzi scheme |
Sources: Pi MiCA white paper and blog, PiScan via BeInCrypto (March 2025), CoinDesk (February 2025) and Vietnam Investment Review (February 2025).
The most balanced reading is that Pi Network is a real project, but one whose token is controlled and released largely by its founding team, and whose price has fallen almost continuously since trading began. Its long delays added to the skepticism: the whitepaper targeted an open network in 2022, but it arrived in February 2025, almost six years after launch.
Pi’s legal record is still open. In January 2026, a federal court in California dismissed securities-law claims in a lawsuit against SocialChain, the company that operates the Pi app, because the plaintiff had not invested money. That ruling applied to the facts of that case, not to whether PI is a security in general, and the plaintiff appealed to the Ninth Circuit in June 2026.
What Is PI Worth?
| Date | PI Price |
|---|---|
| February 20, 2025 (Open Network launch) | ~~$1.83 open, high ~$2.10, low ~$0.62 |
| February 26, 2025 | ~$2.98 to $2.99 (all-time high) |
| December 30, 2025 | ~$0.20 |
| March 13, 2026 | ~$0.29 after the Kraken listing |
| July 14, 2026 | ~$0.071 (all-time low) |
| October 23, 2026 | ~$0.078 |
Sources: CoinDesk, crypto.news, CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko.
At about $0.078, PI’s circulating supply is worth about $880 million. A price of $1 would mean a market value of about $11.3 billion at today’s circulating supply, or $100 billion if all 100 billion PI were in circulation. Because so much of the supply has yet to unlock, fully diluted value matters more for PI than for most tokens. Our Pi Network price prediction covers forecasts for the years ahead.
What’s Next for Pi Network
- Smart contracts: Pi launched its first smart contract, for subscriptions, on testnet in April 2026, and added zero-knowledge cryptography with protocol version 25 in July. A decentralized exchange and a token launchpad are also on testnet, with no mainnet date.
- Network upgrades: Pi’s mainnet moved to Protocol 27 in late September 2026 and to Protocol 28 on October 16, according to Pi’s public mainnet data.
- Stablecoins: Pi said in October 2026 that it is exploring stablecoin support, including a partnership with Open Standard’s OUSD, while keeping PI as its main currency.
- Ecosystem Summit: an online event on November 17 to 19, 2026, where Pi plans platform releases and a new hackathon.
How to Stay Safe With Pi Network
- Use only official channels: the Pi app, the Pi Browser and the wallet at wallet.pinet.com. Pi publishes announcements on minepi.com.
- Never share your wallet passphrase. Anyone with it can move your PI, and Pi will never ask for it.
- Check partnership claims. Rumors of payment partnerships, ETF listings or a fixed “consensus value” for PI regularly circulate without confirmation from Pi.
- Verify transactions on Pi’s official block explorer.
Data sources: Pi Network whitepaper, blog, KYB list and MiCA white paper; CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko (price and supply); PiScan via BeInCrypto and Bitget News (supply and node data); Pi’s public mainnet API (protocol upgrades); Kraken (listing); CoinDesk, Cointelegraph, crypto.news and FXStreet (market history); Vietnam Investment Review and VietNamNet (regulator warnings); and court filings in Moen v. SocialChain (N.D. Cal.), as of October 23, 2026.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Cryptocurrency markets are volatile; always do your own research before investing.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Pi Network?
Pi Network is a cryptocurrency project launched in 2019 by Stanford PhD graduates Nicolas Kokkalis and Chengdiao Fan. Users earn its PI token by checking in daily in a mobile app instead of running mining hardware. The network uses a fork of the Stellar Consensus Protocol, opened its mainnet to outside trading in February 2025 and reports more than 60 million engaged users.
Is Pi Network legit or a scam?
Pi Network is a real project with identifiable founders, registered companies and a token that trades on exchanges such as Kraken and OKX. But it carries high risk: the Core Team and Foundation control a large share of the supply, tokens unlock every month, Binance and Coinbase do not list it, and Vietnam’s police warned its model resembles a Ponzi scheme. Treat PI as speculative.
How much is Pi coin worth today?
PI traded at about $0.078 on October 23, 2026, according to CoinMarketCap, giving it a market value of about $880 million. That is roughly 97% below its all-time high of about $2.98 on February 26, 2025, and just above its record low of about $0.071, set on July 14, 2026. Prices change constantly, so check a live source before trading.
Where can I buy or sell Pi coin?
PI trades on exchanges verified by Pi, including Kraken, OKX, Bitget, Gate, MEXC, LBank and Pionex. Kraken’s March 2026 listing opened trading to US users, subject to geographic restrictions. Binance and Coinbase do not list PI. To sell mined PI, you must first pass KYC, migrate your balance to mainnet and send it from the official Pi Wallet to an exchange.
Why did the Pi coin price fall so much?
PI peaked near $3 days after trading began in February 2025, then fell as early users sold and about 85 million to 270 million locked tokens unlocked each month. The lack of a Binance or Coinbase listing, doubts about concentrated control of the supply and a weak altcoin market added to the pressure, and PI hit a record low of about $0.071 in July 2026.
How many Pi coins are there?
Pi has a maximum supply of 100 billion PI, all created at launch: 65% for community mining, 20% for the Core Team, 10% for the Pi Foundation and 5% for liquidity. Only about 11.3 billion PI was circulating in October 2026. Data providers disagree on total supply, which is why fully diluted valuations differ widely between CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko.
Can I still mine Pi coin?
Yes. New users can still join the app and start daily mining sessions, but the base mining rate keeps falling over time. Mined PI can only be transferred or sold after you pass identity verification and migrate your balance to mainnet. Pi’s KYC grace period ended on March 14, 2025, and users who missed it lost most of their unmigrated balances.
Will Pi coin reach $1?
It would need to rise about 13-fold from about $0.078. At $1, PI’s circulating supply would be worth about $11.3 billion, and all 100 billion PI would be worth $100 billion. With billions of tokens still to unlock and no Binance or Coinbase listing, that would require far more demand than PI has shown since trading began in 2025.
