According to official introduction, Pi Network is a developer platform aimed at achieving wide accessibility and real-world utility. PI token is the native token of the Pi Network platform, which enables users to mine and trade Pi on mobile devices, while also supporting applications built on its public chain eco. Pi has over 60 million users, with more than 19 million verified and over 10 million migrated to its mainnet. PI token is the native platform token of the Pi Network, with a total supply of 9.294 billion tokens and an initial circulating supply of 6.041 billion tokens.
Pi Network has recently gained significant market attention. According to the official announcement, Gate.io will launch PI perpetual contracts spot trading (USDT settlement) on February 20th, 4:00 PM (Beijing Time), with a maximum leverage of 50x. Is Pi Network a social experiment about financial inclusion, or a well-designed traffic game?
When Bitcoin mining has evolved into a capital competition consuming billions of kilowatt-hours, and the staking threshold of Ethereum 2.0 excludes ordinary users, a project named Pi Network has sparked a global frenzy of mass mining. This cryptocurrency application, known as ‘zero-energy mobile mining,’ endorsed by a team of Stanford doctors and featuring an innovative consensus mechanism, has attracted over 60 million registered users in just a few years, creating a miracle in the history of cryptocurrencies. However, this grand blockchain movement is always shrouded in the fog of mainnet delays, value vacuum, and regulatory risks.
Underneath the surface of the booming user growth data, there are some controversial aspects. The project vigorously promotes the barter economy, but users are reluctant to spend their Pi coins and it is difficult to find real consumption scenarios. The business model still needs to be validated.
In addition, the Pi Network eco exhibits obvious centralization. The core team controls key processes such as KYC verification, node deployment, and application listing, making it difficult for community developers to obtain substantive discourse power. Although the white paper promises gradual decentralization, the mainnet launch date has been continuously delayed from Q2 2021 to 2025, and the governance token has yet to be seen, leaving the power transition only on paper promises.
Global regulators have begun to pay attention to Pi Network. The US SEC has added Pi Network to its list of unregistered securities to watch, the Indonesian Financial Services Authority has issued an investment warning directly, and Chinese regulatory authorities have blocked its app download channels. Even more alarming, the distribution of early project users shows that over 60% of participants come from developing countries with weak financial infrastructure, and these users often see Pi as a “digital lottery” that could change their destiny.
In this utopian blockchain experiment, technological idealism clashes fiercely with commercial reality. The true value of the Pi Network lies not in the sophistication of its code, but in revealing the deep contradictions of the cryptocurrency market: when decentralized dreams encounter human profit instincts, when technological utopia meets regulatory barriers, perhaps we will finally understand that true revolution is never easily achieved in a mobile popup.