Pi Network’s native token, PI, has seen its price tumble as investor confidence wavers and early participants offload their holdings after numerous high-profile listings that were rumored failed to materialize.
The token, which has yet to secure a listing on major centralized exchanges like Binance, has struggled to gain traction beyond its community despite a poll on the leading cryptocurrency exchange seeing overwhelming support for a listing.
That delay in public availability has cooled excitement and made it harder for new buyers to enter the market, effectively leading to a sell-off. PI has now been down over 24% over the past seven days to trade at $0.886 per token, and it’s down from a nearly $3 high seen last month.
Early adopters of the token—many of whom accumulated PI during the project’s multi-year testnet phase—are selling en masse. Given the recent price rise, those who adopted the token early managed to accumulate large amounts of it through a mobile-based system and saw their chance to dump on the market.
Pi Network’s Growing Criticism
The project has also faced criticism for its limited real-world utility. While Pi Network promotes itself as a mobile-first, accessible crypto project, it has yet to deliver use cases that appeal beyond its core user base.
Allegations of the Pi Network project resembling a scam, though unsubstantiated, have further put selling pressure on the token. The project’s history has been plagued by controversy, particularly an internal crisis in 2020 involving its co-founders, which led to allegations of financial mismanagement.
This dispute was finally resolved in 2023, but the settlement details remain confidential.
The project has been accused of operating as a pyramid scheme due to its lack of transparency, while others argue that its structure resembles that of a Ponzi scheme. Earlier, Bybit CEO Ben Zhou cited a Chinese police warning to accuse Pi Network of fraud.
