Pi coin (ticker PI) is the cryptocurrency of Pi Network, a project founded by two Stanford PhDs that let ordinary people collect coins through a phone app instead of buying hardware. Pi’s open network went live on 20 February 2025, and PI now trades on several exchanges. On 7 October 2026 CoinGecko showed a price near $0.083 and a market cap of about $0.94 billion, which is roughly 97 percent below the all-time high of $2.99 from 26 February 2025. Both the appeal and the controversy around Pi come from the same place: it grew to tens of millions of sign-ups before anyone outside the project could trade it. The rest of this guide explains how that works, in order, without assuming you know any crypto jargon.
Prices move constantly, so treat that strip as a dated snapshot and check the live widgets on our price page for current numbers.
Where Pi came from
Dr. Nicolas Kokkalis and Dr. Chengdiao Fan studied at Stanford and started Pi Network with an unusual pitch: most people never got into Bitcoin because mining needed expensive machines and electricity, so build a coin you can “mine” on a phone. The app launched on Pi Day, 14 March, in 2019. (Pi’s 2026 Pi Day post calls it the seventh anniversary, which matches 2019, but the exact launch date is not stated on the pages we could read, so we mark it as consistent rather than confirmed.) The small team behind it is called the Pi Core Team, and its official channels are minepi.com and the PiCoreTeam account on X.
Growth came from invitations. Existing users shared a referral code, got a bonus, and the user base snowballed. Pi’s own 2026 marketing talks about “60M+ people”, and we would read that as registered accounts rather than active, verified humans. By Pi’s own figures, about 17.5 million had completed identity verification and 15.8 million had migrated to mainnet by the end of 2025. Those are self-reported numbers and we found no independent audit of any of them.
How Pi “mining” works (and why the word is misleading)
When you mine Bitcoin, computers race to solve a puzzle and the winner earns new coins. Pi does nothing like that. In the app you tap a button once per day to confirm you are present, and a timer starts. While it runs, your account accrues Pi at a rate that started at 3.14 Pi per hour and was designed to halve each time the network grew by ten times. You can also earn bonuses by inviting people and by building a small “Security Circle” of trusted contacts.
So “mining” here is closer to a loyalty programme with a countdown. Pi’s FAQ says the app does not use your phone’s hardware or network for it, and that the app is free. That explains why it costs you no battery to speak of. It also explains what you are not getting: you are not securing the network with computing power. If you want a full hands-on view of the app, including referral mechanics and privacy, the Pi Network app review goes through it.
One thing the FAQ states plainly is a warning we like to repeat: Pi is not free money. The coins in your app are an allocation inside a system that sets rules for when and whether they can leave it.
What actually runs the network
Under the hood, Pi uses the Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP), the same family of consensus design that Stellar uses. SCP is a kind of Federated Byzantine Agreement: nodes agree on transactions by trusting overlapping groups of other nodes, rather than by burning energy as in proof of work. Pi’s node software tracks Stellar protocol versions, which is why you will see references like “v23” or “v28” in Pi’s update posts. Pi says more than 420,000 node operators were running software by June 2026 (a claim, not an audited figure), and it sells the long-term vision as a platform where developers build apps that use Pi for payments.
The practical consequence for beginners: the technology is not exotic. What is unusual is the business and distribution model, and what you can verify about it.
The three pieces you will actually touch
The Pi app is where mining happens and where you complete KYC. The Pi Browser is a separate app that opens Pi-ecosystem sites and mini-apps; Pi apps require it. The Pi Wallet is accessed through the Pi Browser, and Pi describes it as non-custodial: the passphrase that controls it is generated on your phone and never sent to Pi’s servers, which also means Pi cannot recover it for you. If you lose that passphrase, the coins in that wallet are gone. Our wallet guide covers the passphrase, memos and transfers step by step, and best wallets for Pi compares where else you can hold PI.
How much Pi exists, and why the number is disputed
The cap is 100 billion PI. The planned split, as summarized on CoinMarketCap, is 65 percent for community mining rewards, 20 percent for the core team, 10 percent for foundation reserves and 5 percent for liquidity; Pi’s FAQ itself cites 65 billion for mining rewards. On 7 October 2026 both CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap showed about 11.24 billion PI circulating, which at roughly $0.083 gives the $0.94 billion market cap. Multiply the full 100 billion by the same price and you get a fully diluted value of about $8.3 billion, which is the figure critics like to quote.
Where the sites disagree is “total supply”: CoinGecko shows about 17.3 billion, CoinMarketCap shows 100 billion. The reason is that a large amount of migrated Pi sits in lockups, and trackers each choose how to count it. Pi publishes no official unlock schedule on the pages we read, so third-party estimates of unlocks (hundreds of millions of PI in some months) should be treated as estimates. This matters because supply that unlocks gradually is supply that might be sold. The price page explains the market-cap versus fully-diluted gap in more depth.
From the app to the open market: the short version
For years Pi sat behind a “firewall”: you could collect it but not send it to the outside world. The enclosed phase was followed by an open network launch on 20 February 2025 at 08:00 UTC, when Pi said its launch conditions were met (a 15 million KYC target, 10 million migrated users and 100 or more mainnet-ready apps). Exchanges including OKX, Gate, Bitget and MEXC opened spot trading that same morning. The coin spiked to $2.99 six days later and has fallen most of the way back since.
Before you can move mined Pi to an exchange, a few terms matter, and here is each in a sentence:
KYC
Know Your Customer: an identity check. Pi requires it before mobile balances are honored on mainnet, and says only accounts validated as distinct real individuals count. Pi’s KYC is free; anyone asking you to pay for it is running a scam.
Migration
Moving your balance from the app to your mainnet wallet after KYC. It happens in rolling batches, and the process has had bottlenecks (in September 2026 Pi reported that about 497,000 Fast-Track wallets could not claim migration balances because they lacked Pi for network fees).
Lockup
Pi that is not yet transferable. Lockups are tied to your chosen mining bonuses and to KYC and migration status. The mainnet, KYC and lockups page has the dated timeline.
IOU
A placeholder token that traded before real PI could move. It is not PI. The Pi IOU explainer tells you how to avoid buying one by mistake.
Node
A computer running Pi’s software to validate transactions. Pi Node and Pi Desktop are the official software.
Mainnet
The live network where real PI exists, as opposed to the testnet where developers experiment.
What you can do with Pi today
Honestly, not a lot, which is the part most beginner guides skip. You can trade PI on exchanges (see which exchanges list it and the exchanges comparison), hold it in a wallet, and use it inside a small set of Pi-ecosystem apps. Pi’s blog describes a payments library that developers can integrate “in under 10 minutes” and four App Studio apps with live Pi payments by Pi Day 2026. Pi also launched a $100 million Pi Network Ventures fund (split between Pi and USD), with OpenMind and CiDi Games named as investments. What we could not find is independent evidence of broad merchant acceptance. A distinct product called “Pi Pay” is not confirmed on any page we read. If someone says a big retailer takes Pi, ask for the retailer’s own announcement. The Pi Browser review goes deeper on what exists.
The criticisms worth knowing
Critics raise a consistent set of points. The 20 percent core-team share and the opaque accounting of locked and burned coins draw attention. Circulating supply cannot be independently verified. The referral structure resembles multi-level marketing, which industry figures have criticized. KYC involves biometric and document data, and Pi has experimented with palm-print authentication; we found no independent privacy audit. In October 2025 a US investor filed a $10 million lawsuit against the companies behind Pi and some executives; that is an allegation, and the outcome was not verified. And market structure is thin: about $7.5 million of daily volume against a $0.94 billion market cap on 7 October 2026.
None of that proves wrongdoing, and none of it is a reason to ignore the project’s real features: a live market, working node software and a very large user base. The honest read is “real, unusual and unproven”, which is also the conclusion of the longer is Pi legit assessment.
Pi’s FAQ and blog on minepi.com are the primary source for anything about the network. For market data, use CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap side by side, because they differ on rank and total supply. Media summaries of the Core Team’s scam warnings say it will never ask for your password or passphrase.
So, what should a beginner take away?
Pi is a token that got its holders through an app, not a mining rig, and that only became tradable on 20 February 2025. If you downloaded the app years ago, the main steps between you and anything you can sell are KYC, migration and lockups. If you are curious but have not joined, nothing here is a reason to hurry. The price today is about 97 percent below its peak, and no one can honestly tell you where it goes next.
Ready to take the next step with PI?
Open an account on a licensed platform, verify once, and you can buy or sell PI in a few taps.
Crypto is volatile. Only use money you can afford to lose.
Frequently asked questions
What is Pi coin in simple terms?
Is Pi coin a real cryptocurrency?
Who created Pi coin?
How many Pi coins are there?
Is Pi coin mining real?
Can we use Pi coin to pay for things?
Where can we read the official Pi documents?
Sources & further reading
Keep exploring
Is Pi legit?
Scam or real? What the evidence shows, plus the scams that target Pi users.
Read guideMainnet & KYC
KYC, migration and lockups explained, with a dated timeline and the latest fixes.
Read guidePi Network app review
Is the Pi mining app safe, and is it worth your daily tap? Our verdict: 3/5.
Read guide