By: Damian Okonkwo
Pi Mining - an inchoate blockchain technology launched on 14th March 2019; which requires all active subscribers to register and download the app through a referral link and then to login after every 24hrs to activate a new mining session, has today become a thing of great concern, about its future rewards for all miners, especially the jobless youths in Nigeria and other parts of the world who embraced this project from its launch, in the hope that it will become a meaningful one tomorrow and make many millionaires when launched in the Crypto market. This new month of March has just marked the 3rd year in which the mining task that consumes the miners data, energy and time was launched; yet no reward nor market value have been given to the coin. Instead the pioneers have been consistently assuring miners that the future will be great and that Pi will become the next Crypto currency to beat Bitcoin in market price - a thing that other Crypto Currencies founded along side Bitcoin some decades back could not achieve a dime. Not even Bitcoin's greatest rivalry Ethereum.
Foundation of the Pi coin
Pi coin was founded by three Standford students known as: Vince McPhilip, Chengdiao Fan and Nicolas Kokkalis. The mobile app was released on March 14, 2019. The project was quickly monetized through ads, and the number of users soard to over 5.6 million within the first year of its launch and as today has gotten over 23.5 million active miners.
How does Pi Network work？
Pi network requires all registered users to login every day and click a “start mining” button, as to get a fractional amount of the digital currency per second, till the end of a mining session; which lasts for 24 hours. Thus, there is no proof of work being performed except logging in and clicking a button on one's mobile device.
The ratio each miner gets per second is often increased if the user invites more active users to the platform, who register with their link. This makes them gain more digital currency per day. This is a common model in Pyramid Schemes and Multi level marketing.
Is there a proof that Pi Networks currency would be valuable in the future？
Of course, the question of a valid proof that Pi mining would be worth a dime in the future has become the heated debate today among exhausted miners especially Nigerians.
The opinions here are basically divided. While some consider it a scam based on the fact that the mining process has no proof- of-work which validates any new Crypto currency on the Blockchain technology to become valuable in the future, others believe that Pi has got a different proof of work dependent on the input of the miners data and energy. To support this, the founders of this network have published a high level whitepaper outlining their ambitions without providing technical details on how their Pi stack would work. One of their aims is to have others build apps on PI network to benefit from PI network users attention. Further, the team built a test version of their blockchain and later released the production version (i.e. mainnet) last year December 2021. Up till February 2022, the launched mainnet is not open to outside usage (i.e. enclosed network) so users cannot yet exchange their Pi coins with fiat currency on exchanges. This enclosed network state was not previously mentioned in their documentation. Up till the present moment, users having being waiting to migrate to the mainnet but no success has been recorded yet except daily procrastinations.
Reason for the delay offered by the developers
Almost every day, the developers have been offering reason for the delay and trying to convince subscribers to continue mining that the future is bright. First, they said they are working towards building a developer community to build apps on their platform which can add value to the platform.
Secondly, they stated that they also running a hackathon and released a Software Development Kit (SDK) for 3rd party applications to initiate Pi coin transactions. The hackathon winners include apps like an e-commerce store and a marketplace to match freelancers to tasks. These apps believe will start to generate value once the mainnet is opened up. After the launch, the price of Pi and the metrics of these apps would be relevant metrics regarding the success of the project.
Finally, another reason offered by the team for the delay is that they are waiting for the subscribers to complete their KYC and get set for the migration. However many users have expressed difficulties in doing this.
Can anything good come from Pi mining？
Well, with the number of active community the network had formed, it is difficult to neglect the influence it could exert in the Crypto market tomorrow if the developers stick tightly with the vision. At worst Pi could end up as a Meme coin requiring some influential persons to endorse the project. This will still accord it a market value. However, there are rumors that many big exchanges as Binance and KUCOIN are really interested in endorsing the project once the mainnet migration is completed. This if achieved will skyrocketed the market price of Pi once successfully listed.
To join the community of Pi miners you can use their link below:
https://minepi.com/Cryptoinvestment
Of course, mining cost nothing and you can always give it a trial.