Pi Network (PI) is the native gas and settlement asset of Pi Network's own proprietary Layer-1 blockchain, a non-EVM, non-Solana chain forked from Stellar's codebase and consensus design. It originated as a mobile-mining app in 2019 and became externally tradable on February 20, 2025, when Pi Network launched its Open Mainnet.
Circulating supply is approximately 11.13 billion PI against a theoretical maximum of 100 billion, and the network reports over 50 million users who mined PI via mobile app for roughly seven years before Mainnet.
Pi Network's differentiation rests on scale built before any market existed, from millions of Pioneers who mined PI via a mobile app for roughly seven years. That scale predates Open Mainnet and creates a ready-made user base for payments and app-based utility, rather than one recruited through post-listing token incentives.
To convert that base into real usage, the Pi Foundation launched Pi Network Ventures, a self-funded $100 million initiative seeding startups that build real-world PI payment and application utility, intended to reduce reliance on purely speculative demand.
PI functions as a utility token rather than a governance token: no on-chain voting mechanism for protocol parameters has been documented.
PI has a circulating supply of approximately 11.13 billion PI (11,131,503,272.71) and a theoretical maximum supply of 100 billion PI, as of 2026-08-31. The maximum is contingent on network growth and mining participation rather than a fixed genesis cap.
Pi Network did not hold a conventional ICO or token sale. PI was instead distributed through mobile-app "mining" (tap-to-claim, no proof-of-work), a distribution model that ran from 2019 until Open Mainnet went live years later.
Disclosed venture funding is modest: approximately $800,000 from a seed round dated November 29, 2023, led by 137 Ventures, Designer Fund, and Ulu Ventures. PI became tradable at Open Mainnet on February 20, 2025, listed simultaneously on OKX, Bitget, MEXC, and Gate.
PI runs on Pi Network's own proprietary Layer-1 blockchain, a non-EVM, non-Solana chain forked from Stellar's codebase.
Consensus is derived from the Stellar Consensus Protocol, a federated-Byzantine-agreement design in which trusted quorum slices of nodes reach agreement, rather than proof-of-work mining or conventional proof-of-stake validator sets.
Pi Network was founded in 2019 at Stanford University by three co-founders: Dr. Nicolas Kokkalis, Dr. Chengdiao Fan, and Vincent McPhillip. Kokkalis served as Head of Technology, holding a Stanford PhD in distributed systems and formerly serving as CTO of Stanford's StartX accelerator. Fan led Product with a Stanford PhD in Anthropological Sciences focused on social computing, while McPhillip headed Community and reportedly departed the project in February 2021. Aurélien Schiltz, a visiting student researcher, is also credited as a founding contributor. The project originated from Kokkalis's 2018 Stanford course on decentralized blockchain applications.
Pi Network's development is split across for-profit and non-profit entities. SocialChain Inc. (USA) is the primary for-profit entity responsible for core protocol development, ecosystem infrastructure, and the KYC verification system.
A separate non-profit Pi Foundation administers a large community/ecosystem-grants token allocation and is intended to become an ownerless long-term steward of the network; it also launched the $100 million Pi Network Ventures initiative.
Pi Network is not yet governed by an on-chain, community-voting mechanism. The Pi Core Team, operating through SocialChain Inc., currently retains centralized control over the mainnet's consensus/validator nodes and the mandatory KYC process required to migrate mined PI to Open Mainnet.
Full decentralization and community governance are publicly framed as a future milestone contingent on the Core Team relinquishing consensus-node control, not yet reached as of 2026-08-31.
Recent development includes a completed Protocol 26.1 network upgrade alongside ongoing node upgrades and distributed-computing trials.
No completed, formal third-party security audit of Pi Network has been confirmed. CertiK's Skynet page states the project is "Not Audited By CertiK" and shows only an automated Skynet security score of 69.17 (BB), a continuously computed signal rather than a manual audit.