Over the past 48 hours, PI token shed 12% and now sits at $0.078—within striking distance of its all-time low of $0.07. The analyst crowd calls it “washed out.” They see capitulation, the final purge of weak hands before a reversal. I see something else: the final accounting of a project that has delivered nothing but a mobile app that registers points for eight years.
The numbers alone tell a damning story. From a March 2025 high of $0.30, PI has collapsed 74%. Every bounce—like the temporary spike to $0.10 in early April—has been a dead cat, immediately reversed by sellers. The current sentiment, as described by market observer Ben, is that “the market has washed retail to the most severe degree.” That’s the kind of language bottom-pickers love. But for a token with zero fundamental backing, “washed out” doesn’t mean a reversal is coming. It means the last fools are leaving.
Pi Network was born with a seductive promise: mine cryptocurrency for free on your phone. No ASICs, no energy bills, just a daily tap. The founders—Stanford PhDs Nicolas Kokkalis and Chengdiao Fan—built a global user base that crossed 60 million registered accounts. The pitch was that Pi would become a genuine blockchain with a vibrant ecosystem, supported by millions of users. But six years after launch, the reality is a closed mainnet, no smart contracts, no DeFi, no token that can be used for anything except speculation on a handful of illiquid exchanges.
The liquidity mirage
PI trades primarily on HTX, BitMart, and a few other tier-three platforms. A single market order of 100 BTC could swallow the entire order book and move price by double-digit percentage points. For contrast, a comparable order on Bitcoin itself might move it by a fraction of a percent. The “60 million users” narrative evaporates when you look at actual trading volumes—often under $5 million daily. That means only a tiny fraction of those users are participating in the open market. The rest are still tapping a button in the app, accumulating points that may never be redeemable.
I have seen this liquidity trap before. In 2020, when I led an audit of dYdX’s perpetual swap architecture, I learned that liquidity depth is the only real asset for a trading instrument. Without it, price discovery becomes a game of inertia and manipulation. Pi’s order books are so thin that any coordinated sell-off can crash the token. The most recent plunge from $0.10 to $0.078 likely required only a few determined sellers. The same dynamic will repeat on any attempt to rally.
The tokenomics black hole
Let’s be blunt: Pi’s tokenomics are a black box. The team has never published a clear supply schedule, emission curve, or distribution breakdown. The whitepaper mentions a total supply of 100 billion, but no mechanism ensures that cap is enforced. The app’s mining rate halves periodically, but those halvings are discretionary and announced via social media, not on-chain. This is the opposite of the transparent, trustless supply control that Bitcoin’s code enforces.
More critically, PI generates no revenue. The app shows advertisements, but the income from those ads is trivial compared to the implied market cap (still around $500 million at current prices, but based on a phantom circulating supply). There is no burn mechanism, no buyback, no protocol fee. The token exists purely as a speculative vehicle. In my 2022 forensic analysis of the Terra/Luna collapse, I documented how a stablecoin with algorithmic promises can maintain value only as long as new entrants outnumber exits. Pi is worse: it has no peg, no income, and no reason for anyone to hold it except the hope that others will pay more.
That hope is fading. The number of daily active miners is estimated to have declined 30% year-over-year based on app store download trends and community survey data. The new user growth that sustained the narrative has slowed to a trickle. No other project in crypto—not even the most obscure meme tokens—has such a disconnect between claimed users and real economic activity.
The sentiment washout is real—and dangerous
Ben’s diagnosis of “washed out” emotions is technically correct. Many retail holders who bought between $0.20 and $0.30 have sold at a loss. The fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) index for Pi is at extreme levels. But bottom-fishing in an asset with no fundamental floor is like catching a falling knife made of glass. The washout can persist indefinitely. A token can trade at $0.01 for years without any catalyst to revive it, and Pi has no natural buyers.
Note: Sentiment turning bearish on L2s.
I wrote those words last week about Layer-2 scaling networks that bleed money on ZK proof costs. But Pi is an order of magnitude worse. At least L2s have real users, TVL, and revenue of millions of dollars. Pi has none. The bearish sentiment on speculative narratives is spreading from L2s to every project that lacks measurable utility. Pi is the poster child of this correction.
The contrarian view is that Pi’s user base itself is an asset. A project with 60 million users can eventually become a platform. But user count without engagement or willingness to transact is worthless. The majority of Pi’s users are in developing countries where $0.07 is a meaningful sum. As soon as they can sell, they will. The supply overhang from the massive mining pool is the single biggest risk to any price recovery.
The dead cat bounce trap
Every washout is followed by a short squeeze or dead cat bounce. We saw one in early April when the price jumped from $0.07 to $0.10 within 24 hours. Volume spiked, social media cheered, and then the sellers returned. Within a week, the price was back below $0.08. This pattern will repeat. The market lacks the floor to sustain a rally because there are no large holders with a vested interest to support the price. The team itself is likely a seller: they have expenses, and their only source of fiat is selling tokens. Even the most loyal community members are starting to question the endless delays.
Note: Sentiment turning bearish on L2s.
I keep returning to the L2 comparison because it frames the macro trend. Investors are demanding proof of traction, not promises. Pi has none. Its only update in 2025 was a UI redesign of the mobile app. The team claims a mainnet launch is coming “soon,” but that word has been used for three years. Every delay erodes credibility.
The regulatory elephant
Even if Pi miraculously launched a fully functioning mainnet tomorrow, it would face a hostile regulatory environment. The SEC’s Howey Test is a three-pronged check: an investment of money, a common enterprise, and an expectation of profit from the efforts of others. Pi’s users do not invest money (they mine for free), which might provide a legal shield. But the Supreme Court’s recent rulings have broadened the definition of “investment” to include even non-monetary contributions if they provide value to the enterprise. The user’s time, attention, and data are the currency. And the expectation of profit is undeniable: every miner is hoping their PI will be worth dollars one day.
If the SEC ever decides to pursue Pi, the result would be a permanent ban on US trading and likely a token price crash to zero. The team has no legal entity registered in a major jurisdiction, making it impossible to enforce compliance. This opacity is itself a red flag. Legitimate projects open-source their code, disclose their incorporation, and submit to audits. Pi does none of these.
What does the next year look like?
The probability of Pi Network launching a fully functional, decentralized mainnet within 12 months is, in my estimation, below 10%. The technical and economic challenges are immense. Creating a genuine L1 blockchain with millions of users requires sharding, low transaction costs, and a governance system that can withstand attacks. To date, the team has shown no evidence they can deliver any of this. Their updates are about redesigning a mobile interface, not building the underlying infrastructure.
The most likely scenario is a slow bleed. Price continues to grind lower as disillusioned miners slowly exit. Volume dries up further. The token becomes a zombie asset, trading at pennies with occasional spikes when the team posts an update. Eventually, the cost of maintaining the server infrastructure exceeds the ad revenue, and the app shuts down. Millions of users wake up one morning to find their digital fortune has vanished with no ongoing value.
Note: Sentiment turning bearish on L2s.
I write that again not as a reflex but as a reminder that the market is finally demanding real utility. Slow-moving, closed, and undocumented projects are being repriced to zero. Pi is the extreme end of that repricing. The washout is the market’s way of saying that a token without a purpose is a liability, not an asset. When the noise clears, only those projects with measurable output will survive.
For readers considering a gamble on this bounce: ask yourself what has changed fundamentally since the price was $0.30. The answer is nothing. The team is still developing, the mainnet is still “coming,” and the users are still tapping. The only difference is that more people are now aware that the emperor has no clothes. The washout is real, but it is not a bottom. It is the slow pivot from hope to reality. When the last miner taps the button and receives nothing but a server error, who will be left to claim their PI?
Chris Jones is Editor-in-Chief of Crypto Media, based in Hangzhou. He holds an MS in Financial Engineering and has been covering blockchain markets since 2017. The views expressed are his own and do not constitute investment advice.