Pi cryptocurrency players call for app deletion

Many Pi miners lost faith and left the platform as the Pi Network team continued to make only promises.

"I have lost faith in Pi Core Team. Those who are still playing, good luck, I will delete the app," Hoang Phuong wrote in a Facebook group with more than 200,000 members after the Pi Network team , also known as Pi Core Team, made an announcement on Pi2Day (June 28).

Many accounts agreed in the comments section. "I also deleted the app from my phone. Six years is too long for a cryptocurrency project," Thanh Huy wrote. "Other projects with the same model have been listed on the exchange for a long time, but Pi is still just an empty promise. They just want to make money from advertising from tens of millions of users," Vi Anh commented.

A user says "delete app" on a Pi Network group. Photo: Bao Lam

On June 28, the Pi Core Team announced that there were 60 million users , 12 million people successfully performed identity verification (KYC), up from 9.45 million compared to Pi Day (March 14).

The group also reiterated the requirements for an "open mainnet" - meaning users can trade Pi with other cryptocurrencies - including completing an open network in terms of technology, products, business and legality for Pi; achieving KYC goals; and needing "a favorable environment that does not hinder the success of the open mainnet". The above conditions are assessed as "very far from being achieved".

The platform also introduced the feature of locking Pi on the mainnet wallet for several months to several years, instead of just locking it during the "roll call" process as before. In return, users get a "mining speed increase" of up to more than 1,000%. On social networks, many players consider this a "time-wasting" trick of the project. Meanwhile, what they are most looking forward to is being able to trade Pi with other cryptocurrencies, which has not been possible yet.

In fact, over the past year, the Pi Core Team has not made many changes to players, other than minor adjustments to the application. Nicolas Kokkalis , considered the "soul" of the Pi Network project, has not appeared in any media for more than three years, except for a pre-recorded video posted on Pi2Day on the application.

The number of users accessing the Pi Network project has also decreased significantly. Data from SimilarWeb shows that the number of Vietnamese users accessing minepi.com , the project's website, accounted for 4.56% of the global traffic in June, ranking fourth in the world, down nearly 46% in the last three months. In previous years, Vietnamese users always ranked first or second in terms of traffic to this website.

Traffic to minepi.com in the last three months. Source: SimilarWeb

However, there are still people who say they continue to support the project, when Pi Core Team said that Pi2Day 2024 "could be the last Pi2Day before the mainnet opens" - which Hoka News commented is just a trick to prolong the project's time. "Pi Network is a long-term project. I believe this year is the last year before the mainnet opens," Huy Tin wrote on Facebook.

Pi Network was born in 2019, advertised to help users own free Pi virtual currency, by logging in on the phone application every day. The project has continuously caused controversy when it has not allowed trading on the cryptocurrency exchange, but millions of people still participate with the mentality of "what's to lose".

"Users will lose personal information, such as full name, phone number; lose time; lose phone resources; lose effort to attract others and may lose other information on the device," Dr. Dang Minh Tuan, a blockchain expert, once commented .

At the end of June 2023, the Ministry of Public Security said it had coordinated with local police to investigate activities related to the virtual currency Pi. According to the Ministry's representative, activities related to Pi in Vietnam show signs of enticement, with money from the previous person paying the next person in a binary, multi-level business model, so people need to be cautious about the act of enticement to participate in the virtual currency model with unusually high profits.

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