According to the announcement of the Pi Core team in July 2024, the number of global registered users reached 58 million, and the average monthly growth rate of active miners was 3.7%. However, the mainnet launch was postponed for the third time to Q1 2025, resulting in a 12-percentage point drop in the community confidence index. The Vietnamese market performed outstandingly: 2.2 million new users were added in the first half of 2024, setting a daily mining peak of 150 million Pi (equivalent energy consumption reduction of 92%). Meanwhile, the pi network news channel disclosed that the country is testing a compliant KYC-AML system with an error rate of only 0.8% and plans to integrate it into the mainnet verification layer.
The V3 update of the technical white paper shows that after the consensus algorithm is improved, the transaction processing speed has been increased to 3,000 TPS (originally 500 TPS), and the energy consumption cost remains at 0.02 kWh per transaction. However, the node device requirement has been raised to an 8-core CPU/32GB memory. Reuters reported on August 10 that Stanford LABS ‘stress tests found that the median latency of the network under high-frequency loads (50,000 transactions per second) was 6.2 seconds, and the elastic architecture needs to be optimized. If the smart contract function is implemented as per the roadmap, the developer ecosystem budget will increase to $47 million, and the potential number of DApps is estimated to exceed 12,000.
Significant progress has been made in mapping real assets. The GCash of the Philippines launched the Pi exchange channel in June 2024. In the first week, the trading volume exceeded 870,000 transactions, and the exchange rate was pegged at 673,000 ± 34,290. However, the over-the-counter market in Pakistan has exposed risks: the median amount involved in P2P platform fraud in Lahore was $840, and the lack of regulation has led to a recovery rate of only 7% for victims. In the case of supply chain integration, the sales of the Indonesian coffee brand Bali Beans increased by 35% after accepting Pi payment, but exchange rate fluctuations caused 23% of the profits to be swallowed up by exchange losses.
Compliance has become the core challenge. After the implementation of the EU MiCA regulation, PIs need to complete asset registration within 18 months, and the compliance cost is expected to account for 34% of the operating budget. In August 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission of India (SEBI) ruled that the probability of unauthorized trading being illegal was 100%. Referring to the Binance case in 2023 where a fine of $2.04 million was imposed, the delay in the mainnet launch will cause the annual average loss rate of enterprise partners to rise to 28%. Through pi network news analysis, the team is seeking a Swiss FINMA license to reduce the risk of legal deviation.
Ecological expansion focuses on the development of tools. The newly launched PiOS mobile SDK supports the integration of payment modules within 10 seconds, but a third-party audit found that the API error rate was 6.7%, affecting the accuracy of wallet settlement. The prototype of the staking system based on community proposals shows that locking for 90 days can yield an annualized return of 11.3%, and the inflation model controls the annual additional issuance rate within 2.8%. Cambridge University predicts that if the mainnet is successfully activated in 2025, the circulating market value may reach the $30 billion mark, accounting for 8.5% of the stablecoin market share. However, its commercial closed loop still needs to overcome structural obstacles such as insufficient penetration rate in payment scenarios and excessive OTC spread (±18%).