Pi Network news: the timeline that explains where we are

Pi news travels fast and decays slowly: a rumour from 2023 can still be recirculating in 2026 with a new date. This page is the long view. It places the milestones in order, explains what plausibly drove the price, lists what is genuinely scheduled, and shows you how to separate announcements from noise. For the bare numbers, see the price page; for a forward-looking view, the prediction page.

Pi’s timeline, from alpha to Open Network

The story starts with an alpha version on iOS in December 2018 and the beta launch on 14 March 2019, Pi Day. A testnet began on 14 March 2020. On 28 December 2021 Pi started its Enclosed Mainnet, a firewalled phase where Pioneers could earn and migrate in theory, but could not exchange Pi with the outside world. In March 2022 the mining reward formula began to decline monthly.

The decisive moves came in 2024 and 2025. Pi’s KYC and migration grace period began on 1 July 2024, and on 5 July it introduced on-chain lockups. In an update on 19 December 2024, Pi said more than 18 million Pioneers had been KYC-verified (including tentative) and more than 8 million had migrated. Deadlines for KYC slipped repeatedly until 14 March 2025. Then came the main event.

Exchange listings and the February 2025 spike

Pi’s blog post of 19 February 2025 said exchanges and on-ramps that had passed KYB could connect and warned users to be careful with any business not on its list. Pi’s KYB list now includes Kraken, OKX, Bitget, Gate, Pionex, Onramp.money, Onramper, Zypto, LBank, TransFi, MEXC and Banxa (checked 12 October 2026). Details by venue, including pre-market confusion and the IOU products some platforms sold, are on the exchanges page.

Trading opened that week on OKX (20 February), Bitget, MEXC and Gate, and the price spiked to US$2.98 within days, before sliding. HTX removed its Pi IOU on 13 February 2025 and paid out at a fixed rate (secondary report). Bybit’s CEO said he considered Pi a scam, and Binance ran a community vote in February 2025 that reportedly drew 85-88 % support but ended with no listing as of October 2026 (secondary reports). Kraken joined later, going live on 13 March 2026.

Why the price fell

Nobody can give a proven single cause, and anyone who does is guessing. A review of the evidence points to a handful of widely cited factors that likely reinforce each other.

Supply meeting thin demand. Circulating supply is about 11.2 billion PI (12 October 2026, CoinMarketCap), up from roughly 8.2 billion in Pi’s MiCA white paper of October 2025, because locked tokens are unlocking. Secondary reports of PiScan data put monthly unlocks at about 139 million PI in January 2026, 163 million-plus in June and 103.7 million in July, with around 775.8 million more expected by the end of 2026. Those are reported, not official, figures, and Pi publishes no official unlock calendar. Our unlocks page explains how to read them. Against that stands trading volume of about US$2.8 million in 24 hours on 12 October 2026.

Missing big listings. PI is not on Binance or Coinbase, and we found no Upbit or Bithumb listing. Ranks of #71 (CoinMarketCap) and #85 (CoinGecko) for a market cap near US$921 million show how far PI has slipped from the top tier.

Doubts about legitimacy and regulation. Hanoi police warned against using Pi in March 2025, and Chinese industry associations named it an “air coin” in December 2025 (secondary reports). We discuss these in is Pi Coin legit.

A product still arriving. Pi’s headline features, such as the DEX and Launchpad, were on testnet at the last official update, so the story that supports a high price has remained a promise (see use cases). Market cap itself fell from about US$1.48 billion in June 2026 (secondary) to roughly US$921 million on 12 October, and under US$1 billion by 3 October according to CoinStats citing CoinGecko.

2026 so far

The year opened with infrastructure news. On 30 January Pi unblocked about 2.5 million Pioneers for migration. Around the first anniversary of the Open Network (20 February) it described a design for ecosystem tokens through its Launchpad. On Pi Day (14 March) it announced the Launchpad on testnet, the mainnet’s move to protocol 20 (node version 20.2), second migrations, KYC validator rewards and the Kraken integration. OKX opened Pi/USDT spot trading to US customers on 5 May 2026, according to OKX’s own help page, and both founders spoke at the Consensus conference in Miami on 6-7 May. Pi2Day on 28 June brought SoloHost, Pi Sign-in and PiVerify, with Pi reporting 2.56 million quest starts and 1.78 million completions. The price, meanwhile, dropped to its low on 14 July. In August Pi changed App Studio pricing, in early September it shipped developer tools, on 17 September it posted KYC fixes, and on 8 October it said it would explore a stablecoin with Open Standard.

Read that list for what it is: mostly infrastructure and developer milestones, with few announcements that change what an ordinary holder can do with PI on a given day. That gap between the pace of engineering news and the price is a large part of the story.

What to watch next

A few things are scheduled or being tracked. Protocol 28: news outlets report that it ran on testnet from 25 September 2026 and will reach mainnet on 16 October 2026, with node operators told to update by 13 October. Pi’s own post on versions 27 and 28 was not found, so treat the dates as reported. KYC and migration: Pi promised a fix for roughly 497,000 Fast-Track Pioneers within a week of 17 September, and its completion is unconfirmed; read the KYC guide. Unlocks: monthly volumes for August to October 2026 are not verified. Mainnet DeFi: whether the Launchpad and DEX leave testnet. Stablecoin plans with Open Standard, which Pi describes only as principles for now. Regulation: the ESMA register entry for PiBit Ltd and any decision on MiCA. And Pi Day on 14 March, the project’s habitual date for announcements.

If you use the regulation overview alongside this page, you can see how those pieces fit the picture in your country.

Which Pi news sources to trust

Highest

minepi.com (blog, FAQ, white paper, KYB list) and Pi Core Team's own channels. Read the post itself, not a screenshot.

Reliable for scope

An exchange's own announcement about its listing; a regulator's own register or notice.

Useful, check first

Trade media, tracker pages (CoinMarketCap, CoinGecko) and on-chain dashboards. Figures can conflict, and ranks and supply differ by tracker.

Low

Video channels, social posts and sites promising dates, price targets or "confirmed" partnerships.

A good habit is to ask of any claim: who said it, when, and where can I read it first-hand? If you cannot answer, it is not news yet. Keep this page and the price tracker in the same tab and you will catch most recycled stories.

A note on timing

All figures on this page are dated to the day we checked them, 12 October 2026, and prices are shown from CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko snapshots, not a live feed. Pi moves in days, and any “latest” article is out of date quickly, including this one. We update the timeline when Pi posts something material; the date at the top is when we last did.

Updated: October 12, 2026