In today’s newsletter we are going to:

1. Summarize Pi2Day 2024

2. Find out if The Pi Core Team let us down

3. Give our thoughts on Pi2Day 2024 and what we’d like to see next

PI2DAY SUMMARY

Right On Track!

In December 2023, the Pi Core Team set out 3 conditions, which must be met in order reach open mainnet.

• Finish all open mainnet preparation - This goal is aimed at the Pi Core Team, whom must prepare technological, legal and other back-end work. They say they are on track with preparation work behind the scenes.

• Meet network KYC, migration, and utility creation goals 

  1) KYC’d Pioneers: target - 15 million - currently 12 million - up 4 million from December 2023
  2) Migrated Pioneers - target: 10 million - currently 5.8 million - up 1.9 from December 2023
  3) Fully “ready”, working Pi Apps - target: 100 - currently 70 - up 30 from December 2023

• No unfavourable external environment - Certain factors such as wars or politics can affect cryptocurrency and markets negatively. Thankfully, there’s no such thing happening right now let’s hope it stays this way. (not just for Pi Network’s sake)

New Features, Upgrades and Announcements!

• NEW: On-Chain Lockups - This new feature allows us to lock up portions of our available Pi for extra mining rewards. Until now, we could only lock up before a migration has happened. Now users can create lockups at any time and earn more Pi for HODLing.

• NEW: KYC Appeal - For all those that had their KYC rejected for some reason, this is a Godsend!

• NEW: Social Profiles - After 5 years as a social network, we finally have social profiles, ladies and gentlemen! Apps built on Pi can integrate such profiles in their apps shortly. Keep an eye on this feature as it may be very important later down the line. Go to Pi Browser to check it out - feel free to add me @kozii

• NEW: 6 Month Grace Period Starting 1st July - This grace period was originally mentioned in the 2nd part of the whitepaper, which is basically the time period pioneers have to complete KYC. We’ll discuss this later in this newsletter.

• SOON: 2nd And Future Migrations - The next balance transfer is on its way, and this transfer includes bonuses from referrals and security circle. No date has been given, but all signs show that it will happen before open mainnet. More on this later.

• SOON: Nodes - In a nutshell, the preparation has began to move over 200,000 nodes (that’s a lot!) from testnet to mainnet. We expect this to be a gradual rollout to complete before open mainnet.

• SOON: Pi Commerce X PiFest - The successful PiFest held in 2023 is coming back with a twist: pioneers will be able to use Pi commerce apps to list and find stores accepting Pi!

• Fireside Forum - Improved algorithm and continuous development efforts focused on the decentralized content moderation.

• KYC and migrations - In short, the team continues polishing these 2 critical infrastructures. With the recent upgrades such as the new liveness checks, mainnet checklist optimization and migration infrastructure upgrade, things are looking decent!

• (Developers) Pi Ad Network - Community Pi App Developers can start using the platform and get paid for advertisements shown to pioneers.

• (Developers) Geolocation - This feature is added for IOS developers to use within their apps for a more seamless experience and more use cases. Android version coming later.

• (Developers) Pi App Incubator Program - These are cohorts created by the Pi Core Team to improve and mentor existing community Pi Apps, alongside a monthly monetary grant. This program helps community Pi Apps turn into “ready” states. We can expect more cohorts in the future to elevate even more apps to such states.

DID NICOLAS AND TEAM DISSAPPOINT?

Close, But No Cigar

We knew open mainnet wouldn’t happen on 28th June because the team has been too quiet and critical preparations such as mainnet node system, 2nd balance migration or even a major marketing campaign were nowhere to be seen! On top of that, KYC, migration, and utility numbers are much lower than the targets which were set out in December 2023.

We understand some people are disappointed regardless because open mainnet still hasn’t happened. Afterall, it’s been a fair few years already!

We feel your pain! But let’s explore this from a higher perspective: all the preparations and build up are in the best interest of the project. Cryptocurrency projects where supply is airdropped (given for free, essentially) to millions of users are known to collapse very quickly after listing on exchanges because there’s no sufficient demand for those coins and people opt to sell instead for whatever they can, therefor obliterating the price. Out of all Pi stakeholders, the leaders know this best. They want the project to succeed more than anyone.

This is why we are going heading a different direction instead by creating a sustainable ecosystem. The team is laying down the necessary infrastructures and polishing the systems, whilst the community Pi App developers work on their dApps to boost the Pi Ecosystem with creating demand and utilities for the Pi currency we all love. This may not look like it, but it is the optimal way to maximize our chances of succeeding considering the way Pi is earned.

They Said What?!

The language used in the recent blogpost is assertive.

Even they think the network “needs to go to open mainnet in 2024”!

This is evidence of the core team’s heavy intention to push hard and make open mainnet happen this year. They did also boldly say that “this is the last Pi2Day without open mainnet”. So it is not just us pioneers that think it's time to transition!

The Clock Is Ticking

Pi Network is implementing a 6-month KYC (Know Your Customer) grace period and a rolling 6-month window starting July 1, 2024, as part of its preparation for the Open Network. This period requires Pioneers to submit their initial KYC application within the first 3 months and achieve full KYC status and migration within six months.

The grace period aims to balance adequate time for Pioneers to complete KYC and migration while creating urgency to accelerate progress towards the Open Network. It helps verify and migrate Referral and Security Circle bonuses and prevents unverified Pi from migrating to the Mainnet, thereby reducing uncertainty and freeing up Pi for KYC'ed Pioneers which can be mined in the future.

The emphasis is clearly on making sure pioneers pass KYC sooner, rather than later. Contrary to previous beliefs which previously argued that pioneers will have the grace period from after open mainnet, this is proof to say otherwise. So it is best to try bring the inactive pioneers back now to complete KYC or else they are going to miss out.

All in all, the grace period feature implementation clearly shows that the days of enclosed mainnet are marked. We expect more inactive members to come back as we get closer and closer to open mainnet.

Note: we can also foresee that this news will not reach everyone and many will inactive pioneers will not return, making their Pi go to waste including the referral bonus associated to their inviter.

Slow And Steady Wins The Race

The KYC and Pi App numbers are both growing in a great fashion. One of the biggest surprise is to see 70 apps instead of 40 from just 6 months ago - not too shabby! KYC numbers are looking lovely as well!

On the flipside, the migration numbers paint us a different picture. The growth has been slower than expected. Here’s a chart that tracks migrations.

There were 2 periods with no migration in 2023, which seem to have been rectified. We’ve been averaging around 12,000 migrations per day since PiDay, 14th March 2024 but we need an average of 23,500 migration per day to reach the target of 10,000,000 by end of the year. It’s more than double! Can it be done?

With the KYC and migration infrastructure upgrades, we think it is possible. The grace period will also cause Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) and bring many people back. The psychological pull from not wanting to miss out will gradually get stronger and stronger the closer we are to open mainnet, but it is safe to say that this metric is going to be a challenge. Expect the effect of this get stronger as we inch nearer open mainnet, especially if and when there is a date confirmed!

Looking Behind Lockups And Supply

Whilst many other cryptocurrency projects offer staking, in Pi Network, lockups are the tool which incentives holders to HODL. The on-chain lockup is a great new feature to give mining rewards and to combat the inevitable sell pressure from our millions of miners. The original lockup system has been effective.

Out of the 3.8 billion Pi that has already migrated to mainnet, 2.6 billion Pi (68% of total) is still locked up. This means there there are fewer coins to trade with on the exchanges, which means people sell less coins to drive the force down.

The “Pioneer Hold” amount is our current circulating supply. The “Unlock” amount are Pi that can be claimed by pioneers because their lockup has expired, and with 1 click of a button, balances from here turn into circulating supply. We could even consider our circulating supply to be 1,225,466,630 Pi as of now because there is nothing stopping the “Unlock” amounts to be spent.

Although these numbers are great - out of every 3 Pi, 2 Pi are locked up - we cannot rely on this mechanism only. In 2022 when the first mainnet balance transfer were announced, it came with no bonuses included, so many pioneers locked up for 3 years knowing that they are only locking up a balance which is a smaller amount in comparison to their total mining balance due to no bonuses. On top of that, we are now much closer to open mainnet, so people may prefer available balance instead of more mining rate.

This is why we need even more ways to balance our starting circulating supply, so we get through the inevitable initial volatility once trading begins on a large scale upon reaching the open mainnet stage. People have been mining 1, 2, 3, 4 and even 5 years, so we can certainly expect sell pressure, regardless how much we don’t want to.

Currently, this feature is most useful for pioneers that bartered goods and services for Pi and for those that have expired lockups. In the feature, it plays a critical role around open mainnet as pioneers will have more available balance and may wish to lock up more after there is a price for Pi, or after Pi is traded on exchanges.

FINAL VERDICT

Nicolas and his team did not disappoint - they never promised open mainnet. Expecting open mainnet was wishful thinking. The KYC, migration and app numbers don’t lie - they are way lower than the targets set out in December 2023.

We are glad to see the team striving to reach open mainnet this year by preparing the critical infrastructures, such as nodes, KYC and migration queue in order to prepare for a smooth transition. We even see that they want to transition to open mainnet (on their terms, of course).

We’d Love To See This Before Open Mainnet

We would love to see more marketing campaigns in the coming months as we are likely in the final few months of the enclosed mainnet phase. We have to reignite the spirit of the community for open mainnet, which is going to be one of the largest launches in the cryptocurrency scene in history! For maximum effect, a coordinated marketing campaign is needed so pioneers push this full force. People need to know about this!

The team is notorious for being conservative and letting the community and results speak for themselves, but the open mainnet is a special one-and-only time where all the marketing cannons available at our disposal must be fired for full effect, so more people learn about Pi and potentially buy it when Pi can be traded! Hype, hype, hype!

We trust there is going to be a big launch with a large preparation in advance as the last thing we want is to carry over the silent suffering of waiting. We expect signs to come as we inch even closer (we’ll keep you posted!) but we want to turn the tables and create excitement, anticipation and hype for the most accessible cryptocurrency in the world - Pi!

KOZII X RAYSUNITED: SPECIAL EDITION

That’s a wrap from us today!

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