Pioneers Voice Concerns as Pi Marks 1-Year Open Network Milestone

One year out—and the Pi Network's 'open mainnet' still feels anything but open.

The grand experiment in mobile-first crypto mining hits its first anniversary with its pioneers growing restless. What was pitched as the 'people's cryptocurrency' now faces its people's skepticism.

Where's the Utility?

The core complaint echoes across forums and social feeds: a staggering volume of Pi tokens exists, mined by millions on phones worldwide, yet virtually none of it moves on public markets. The network's much-hyped transition to an open, permissionless system remains functionally gated. Pioneers hold digital assets they can't truly spend, trade, or leverage—a crypto purgatory where your balance is just a number.

KYC: The Great Bottleneck

Progress hinges on a monumental Know-Your-Customer verification process. The Pi Core Team insists this scaled identity check is essential for legitimacy and compliance, preventing the sybil attacks that plague other networks. Critics call it a central point of failure that contradicts decentralized ideals. The queue is long, the wait is longer, and patience is wearing thin.

A Test of Community Faith

This isn't just technical. It's psychological. The project mobilized a massive community through sheer social incentive—mine now, it'll be worth something later. That 'later' is getting fuzzy. The delay risks transforming early adopters from evangelists into skeptics. Network effect can cut both ways.

Meanwhile, in Traditional Finance...

As Pi grapples with its internal mechanics, traditional finance offers a cynical parallel: creating vast, illiquid asset pools is something banks have excelled at for centuries. At least they pay a negligible interest.

The clock is ticking. Pi's next year will define it: either as the project that finally unlocked its massive user base into a real economy, or as a cautionary tale in the gap between token creation and tangible value.

Prior to Open Network, the Pi community claimed that it had built the ecosystem over six years to improve usability. Devs worked on Pi to create “real apps and utilities for Pioneers to engage with, and verify the identities of millions of Pioneers to prepare the network for real-world assets and production processes.” 

The Pi Core Team stated that it will consider GitHub feedback and the overall responses to the Google Form. 

Pi Network anniversary marred by new uncertainties 

Pi’s LAYER 1 blockchain’s primary focus is on mobile mining. The ecosystem has a fixed maximum supply of 100 billion tokens. The distribution of the tokens includes 65% for community mining, 10% for foundation reserves, 5% for liquidity, and 20% for the core team.

Pi’s Open Network went live on February 20, 2025. Currently, the network reports over 17.7 million verified users. Daily data shows more than 9 billion Pi from mining rewards have already moved to mainnet wallets.

Some label it a “failed project” or “scam,” citing locked accounts and missed selling opportunities during price highs. On the other hand, fanatics emphasize the potential for real utility and developer tools.

Overall, trust erosion is evident, with calls for faster resolution of core issues such as wallet access and open-source code releases.

The trend is more like a traditional post-launch distribution trend: extreme speculative peak, followed by a long period of cooling as early adopters take profits and new demand struggles to keep up with supply.

Pi Coin price nears an all-time low

Pi Coin, like the rest of the market, is in one cold crypto winter. According to on-chain data, the global crypto market cap today stands at $2.26 trillion. This is a 3.8% drop over the last 24 hours and a 27.52% drop over the last year.

Over the past week, Pi has dropped more than 8%. The token is now trading at $ 0.1622, close to its all-time low NEAR $0.13. For a project priding itself on huge milestones, the price action tells a very different story.

Presently, the biggest question surrounding Pi is clear: If the ecosystem is growing this big, why isn’t the price?

One reason could be liquidity. Mainnet migration has resumed, allowing Pi token deposits on CEXs. Now, roughly 200 million Pi coins reportedly flowed into exchange wallets. That kind of supply increase naturally raises concerns about selling pressure.

Adding to the market tension and frustrations, foundation-related wallets registered tens of millions of Pi in outflows in 24 hours. This, for traders, speaks of potential token distribution rather than accumulation.

As for now, Pi is still under pressure. The token is trading below its 50-day EMA. The most important level to watch is $0.1533. A daily close below this area may open the door to the record low at $0.1300.

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