Image Credit: Pi Network
Key Takeaways
- PI has fallen over 97% from its $2.99 high despite Pi Network completing a mandatory upgrade and testing a native exchange.
- Roughly 1.21 billion new tokens are due to unlock this year, adding daily supply pressure close to one-sixth of current trading volume.
- PI remains unlisted on Binance and Coinbase, with analysts citing closed code, no security audit and centralized governance as barriers.
Pi Network completed a mandatory mainnet upgrade in August, has a decentralized exchange scheduled for mid-September, and has already tested that exchange with hundreds of thousands of users on testnet. None of it has moved the token’s price.
PI closed August at roughly $0.09, down more than 97% from the $2.99 high it reached when mainnet trading opened in February 2025. The gap between the project’s development pace and its market valuation is not a mystery once the underlying mechanics are examined directly.
Protocol 26 Clears the Way for a Final Mainnet Upgrade
Pi’s Core Team required all node operators to complete a mandatory upgrade, known as Protocol 26, by August 11 or lose network connectivity.
According to the team’s own announcements, the upgrade strengthened the smart contract layer, hardened internal ledger data structures, improved cross-chain communication, and added cryptographic capabilities that a subsequent upgrade depends on.
The Core Team described the pairing of this upgrade with the next one, Protocol 27, as the completion of Pi’s foundational development sequence rather than the start of another cycle.
Protocol 27 remains on testnet as of this writing, adding smart contract authentication, backend infrastructure for outside developers, and automated market maker liquidity pools. The Core Team has targeted September 15 for its mainnet deployment.
Pi’s upgrade process is centrally coordinated: the Core Team sets deadlines, and nodes that miss them lose connectivity until they comply. There is no on-chain governance vote of the kind that determines protocol changes on networks like Bitcoin or Ethereum.
That structure allows for fast, coordinated upgrades, but it is also one of the specific concerns analysts have cited as a barrier to listing on the largest exchanges.
A Native Exchange Has Already Run on Testnet
The automated market maker due in Protocol 27 is not an unproven concept for Pi. The project’s Launchpad tool tested a combined order book and automated-market-maker exchange on testnet through a token launch that ran from June 11 to June 28, drawing 242,000 participants who committed more than 15.9 million test tokens.
If the September mainnet deployment proceeds on schedule, Pi would launch with a decentralized exchange already seeded with participation data from a real trial run, rather than starting from an empty order book.
Whether that translates into sustained mainnet trading volume is the open question. Pi’s 24-hour trading volume across existing venues stood at $3.7 million on August 31, a level that leaves little room to absorb new selling without a meaningful price effect.
The Valuation Math Works Against Every Upgrade
Pi has a maximum supply of 100 billion tokens, of which roughly 11.1 billion were in circulation as of late August, meaning the large majority of eventual supply has not yet reached the market.
According to Pi’s own 2026 unlock schedule, approximately 1.21 billion additional tokens are due to enter circulation this year, at a pace of roughly 6.5 million tokens per day. At current prices, that represents close to $585,000 in new potential daily supply, a figure that alone approaches one-sixth of the token’s entire daily trading volume.
Every PI token in circulation was originally acquired through mobile-based mining at no direct cost to the holder, which gives a meaningful share of the holder base a rational incentive to sell at any positive price.
For the token’s price to hold steady, buying demand needs to match or exceed both the daily unlock volume and this ongoing baseline of selling. At current volume levels, that has not been happening, and PI has traded in a narrow band between roughly $0.07 and $0.10 since mid-July.
Exchange Access Remains the Missing Piece
PI is not listed on Binance or Coinbase, the two largest exchanges by retail trading volume. Binance ran a community poll in February 2025 in which 86.8% of roughly 226,000 respondents favored listing the token; Binance has not listed it and has not issued a detailed public explanation for the decision.
Kraken added PI for spot trading in March 2026, becoming the first U.S.-regulated exchange to do so, and OKX opened U.S. access to the token in May. Neither exchange offers the trading volume of Binance or Coinbase.
Analysts covering the exchange-listing question have pointed to three recurring gaps. First, Pi’s core codebase is not fully open to independent review in the way Bitcoin’s or Ethereum’s is. Second, no comprehensive third-party security audit of the full protocol has been published.
Third, the project’s centralized governance structure differs from the decentralized models larger exchanges are more accustomed to vetting. Protocol 27 does not directly address any of these three points.
Unverified Partnership Reports Undercut Real Progress
Pi’s community engagement is genuine by most measures. Data from social analytics firm Santiment showed Pi Network leading crypto-related social media conversation volume for multiple weeks in mid-2026, ahead of Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana combined.
But that activity has largely come from existing holders discussing a position they already own rather than from new buyers, and social conversation volume does not place buy orders on an exchange.
Compounding the issue, reports circulated in August that PayPal had added PI to its crypto payment program and that a separate firm, RoboPay, had integrated the token for machine-to-machine payments.
Neither claim has been confirmed by the companies involved. PayPal’s published list of supported crypto assets includes Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash and its own PYUSD stablecoin, but not PI, and PayPal does not appear on Pi’s own registry of verified business partners.
Unconfirmed claims of this kind make it harder for outside observers to distinguish Pi’s genuine technical progress from unverified marketing activity circulating in its community.
What Would Actually Move the Price
Several specific, verifiable developments would likely have more effect on PI’s price than another protocol upgrade. A listing on Binance or Coinbase would meaningfully expand the pool of potential buyers and change how much new daily supply the market can absorb.
The Protocol 27 decentralized exchange had sustained trading volume in the weeks following its launch, rather than an initial spike. This would offer the first real evidence that Pi’s user base is transacting with the token rather than simply holding or mining it.
A confirmed commercial partnership listed on Pi’s own verified business registry, as opposed to an unconfirmed report, would help separate real utility from speculation. And a published third-party security audit would directly address one of the most commonly cited reasons larger exchanges have stayed away.
None of these are guaranteed, and Pi’s Core Team has not committed publicly to a timeline for the audit or governance changes analysts have flagged. The September 15 target for Protocol 27’s mainnet launch is the most concrete near-term milestone that will test whether the project’s shipping pace can translate into market activity.
