Pi Coin and Pi Network, explained from scratch

Pi Coin (PI) is the native token of Pi Network, a layer-1 blockchain created by the Pi Core Team and distributed, at the start, through a free smartphone app. Ask ten people in Hong Kong, Jakarta or Ho Chi Minh City what Pi is and you will get ten answers: a mining app, a scam, a community, a long-term bet. This page sets out what the project actually is and what it is not, using Pi’s own documents, with dates, so you can judge for yourself. The question of whether the project can be trusted has its own deep dive in is Pi Coin legit; here we stick to how it works.

Where Pi Network came from

Pi’s own site lists Dr. Chengdiao Fan and Dr. Nicolas Kokkalis as the “Pi Founders”. The beta app launched on 14 March 2019, which the project calls Pi Day (the 2026 edition was its seventh), after an alpha on iOS in late 2018. The pitch was simple: a cryptocurrency that ordinary people could earn on an ordinary phone, without the electricity bills and specialised hardware of Bitcoin-style mining. Those early members are called Pioneers.

According to Pi’s MiCA white paper (version 1.1, October 2025), the app is operated by SocialChain, Inc., a Delaware company, while a Cayman entity called Pi Community Company holds the intellectual property and the Pi Foundation, also in the Cayman Islands and set up in December 2024, owns PiBit Ltd, the British Virgin Islands company that filed the white paper. The document also states plainly that there was no ICO, meaning no public token sale. Pi claims “over 60 million engaged Pioneers” (blog post of 15 July 2026). That number is self-reported and has not been independently audited, and it counts people who signed up, not people who hold tokens on the mainnet.

How the system fits together

Three layers are easy to confuse, so it helps to separate them. The first is the mining app, where Pioneers start a session every 24 hours. The second is Pi Browser, a custom browser that runs Pi-integrated apps and hosts the Pi Wallet. The third is the Pi mainnet, the blockchain itself, which records balances once they have been migrated out of the app.

The blockchain uses a consensus method adapted from the Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP), a Federated Byzantine Agreement design. Pi’s white paper says it builds a global trust graph from Security Circles, the small groups of people each member vouches for. The MiCA paper describes Pi more bluntly as a fork of SCP running its own layer-1 chain. How well that design scales is, in the white paper’s own words, an area of open research.

The Pi Wallet is non-custodial. The Pi FAQ says the private key is a passphrase generated on your phone, and that losing it can mean losing the Pi in that wallet. Nobody at Pi can restore it for you, which is also why people who ask you for it are, by definition, scammers.

What “mining” means here

Pi’s phone mining does not solve cryptographic puzzles. You tap the lightning button to open a 24-hour session, and the app credits a reward at a rate set by a formula; the app does not need to stay open. Pi’s white paper says the system avoids energy-hungry proof-of-work, and the MiCA paper describes tokens as distributed “through mining in the app”, with node operation and lockups also rewarded. In practice, “claiming” is the more honest word. The rate started at 3.1415926 Pi per hour, was halved as membership passed 1 thousand, 10 thousand, 100 thousand, 1 million and 10 million, and has declined by formula every month since 1 March 2022.

A Security Circle of up to five trusted members adds 20 % each to your base rate, and the referral team adds 25 % for each concurrently mining referral. The details, including why a Raspberry Pi computer has nothing to do with any of this, live on the mining page.

From the enclosed network to the open mainnet

For years you could earn Pi but not move it. The project’s “Enclosed Mainnet” started on 28 December 2021 behind a firewall, with no exchange connectivity. Between 2024 and early 2025 Pi pushed Pioneers through identity verification and migration; the KYC grace period began on 1 July 2024, and its deadline was extended several times before 14 March 2025. Only identity-verified Pioneers can move their balance onto the mainnet, which is why the KYC guide matters so much to Pioneers.

The firewall came down with the Open Network launch on 20 February 2025. Pi’s announcement said exchanges and on-ramps that had passed its “KYB” (know your business) checks could connect, and warned users to be extremely cautious about any business not on its list. The same week PI began trading against USDT on OKX, Bitget, MEXC and Gate, reaching a peak of US$2.98 on 26 February 2025 on CoinMarketCap. Kraken added PI on 13 March 2026. The exchanges page keeps the up-to-date listing table and explains the difference between real PI and the “IOU” products some platforms sold before launch.

Supply and allocation

Pi’s white paper page sets a maximum of 100 billion PI “if and when fully mined”, and the allocation as 65 % to mining rewards (past and future), 10 % to a future non-profit Pi Foundation for ecosystem and community, 5 % to liquidity pools, and 20 % to the Core Team, which unlocks at the same pace as community mining and may face an additional self-imposed lockup. Before mainnet the supply was uncapped. The MiCA paper adds that up to 10 billion PI would go to a Foundation treasury and 5 billion to a liquidity pool, “created from a genesis event”, and that core contributors hold tokens subject to vesting schedules, without publishing the schedule.

How much of this is in circulation today depends on who you ask. As of 12 October 2026 CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko both show about 11.24 billion PI circulating, while “total supply” differs by tracker (CoinGecko about 17.3 billion, CoinMarketCap 100 billion). These are estimates of unlocked and migrated coins, not audited figures; the supply page explains the gap, and the unlock schedule covers how locked Pi is released.

• 100 bnmaximum supply (Pi white paper)
• ~11.2 bncirculating PI (CMC / CoinGecko, 12 Oct 2026)
• ~US$0.08price, 12 Oct 2026; ATH US$2.98 on 26 Feb 2025
• ~US$921 Mmarket cap (CoinMarketCap, 12 Oct 2026)

What you can do with Pi today

The honest answer is “less than the marketing suggests, more than nothing”. Inside the ecosystem, Pi Browser hosts apps that accept PI, a Map of Pi lists local sellers (Pi reported 49,000 active sellers in March 2025, self-reported), and developers can build with Pi App Studio. Mainnet apps with live payments began with a handful of invited developers in March 2026. At the same time Pi’s own Pi Day 2026 post still listed the Launchpad and DEX as testnet features, and independent evidence of broad merchant acceptance is thin. The use cases page separates what works from the myths, such as the claims that big brands accept Pi.

If you want to hold PI, there are two routes: earn and verify it through the app, or buy it on an exchange (see how to buy Pi Coin). Moving it between the two requires verification and migration, covered in the transfer guide.

The risks worth knowing

Pi is not a classic open-source project run by anonymous volunteers; it is a company-led network with a central team, and critics such as Justin Bons argue the Core Team controls validators and most of the supply. Pi counters that more than 420,000 Pioneer-operated nodes exist, though those figures are self-reported and mostly relate to testnet. The code is not fully open source and independent audits have not been published, according to secondary reviews. Hanoi police in Vietnam and a group of industry associations in China have warned the public against using or trading Pi (details in the regulation overview and our news timeline).

Add thin liquidity (around US$2.8 million traded in 24 hours against a market cap near US$921 million on 12 October 2026) and ongoing token unlocks, and you have a volatile asset. Nothing on this page is investment advice; if you are weighing a decision, the price page and the prediction page set out the numbers and the assumptions behind them.

How to check the facts yourself

Three habits will keep you out of most trouble. First, treat minepi.com as the only official domain and read Pi’s blog directly rather than screenshots of it. Second, check any exchange against Pi’s public KYB list before you send PI to it. Third, keep your passphrase to yourself, since the FAQ describes it as the only key to your wallet, and remember that Pi’s KYC happens inside the app. If someone offers to “fast-track” verification for money, walk away.

Updated: October 12, 2026