I am sitting here in front of my pc trying to find the next big opportunity in the crypto world.
The project that catched my attention was a network that the crypto community is very interested in, the Pi network.
So I became curious and started collecting information about what is pi cryptocurrency.
After my research I realized that the Pi network offers a very interesting and at the same time controversial approach for a crypto environment.
In a nutshell, Pi allows individuals to mine crypto coins by just using their mobile phones. This differentiates Pi network from the first generation cryptocurrencies that demand massive energy consumption in order to complete the mining process. Additionally, Pi offers a more user and planet friendly alternative.
So, let’s take a deeper look at the Pi network.
Current problems of 1st generation cryptocurrencies
The whole cryptocurrency and blockchain theory is an amazing idea that will bring a lot of changes to the current financial – and not only – scenery.
Bitcoin came into our lives proposing a revolutionary financial solution to citizens around the world who were disappointed from the methods that the current banking system applies.
Bitcoin’s idea came into light in 2009 by the anonymous programmer (or group of programmers) Satoshi Nakamoto, providing people the ability to safely exchange value without requiring a third party or intermediary.
Bitcoin facilitates the payment process since people can pay each other directly surpassing the annoying limitations forced by intermediaries such as banks and financial institutions.
Bitcoin became very popular over the last decade and as a result its value increased rapidly.
Despite its benefits, this enormous boost of price led to concentration of money and power in very few people inside the bitcoin ecosystem.
In a nutshell, 87% of Bitcoins are owned by 1% of the network, many of these coins were mined virtually free in their early days.
As Bitcoin continued to increase in value, entire companies start investing large amounts of money in the mining process.
All these mining companies made it very difficult for ordinary people to participate in the mining process to create and earn crypto coins.
Normal people need to overcome a big barrier in order to get in the mining process and earn their own Bitcoins or any other crypto coin that uses this PoW as a mining method.
Pi network offers the solution
After identifying the barriers that exist for common people concerning Bitcoin, the Pi team came up with a network that would give the opportunity to ordinary people to mine and get rewarded with cryptos.
All existing cryptocurrencies use a consensus algorithm to ensure that their transactions are absolutely accurate and unfalsifiable.
We can identify two major consensus methods, the Proof-of-Work (PoW) and Proof-of-Stake (PoS).
The first one, the Proof-of-Work is the mining architecture used by Bitcoin and the majority of digitals coins. Is not environmentally friendly because it demands tons of energy to mine coins and in general to make things happen.
Proof-of-Stake, which was adopted by Ethereum platform, is trying a more environmentally friendly approach since it uses the hard drives to keep things running.
Pi network uses the Stellars’ Consensus Protocol (SCP) as its consensus algorithm.
Such a model doesn’t consume too much energy in contrast to the popular PoW method.
SCP requires exchanging many network messages in order for the nodes to come to “consensus”.
The algorithm ensures accuracy in transactions through communication and voting among the mining machines (nodes).
The Stellars’ Consensus Protocol has already proved to be applicable since it is already used by the Stellar network.
So, what is pi cryptocurrency?
Pi cryptocurrency is a digital currency allowing ordinary people to mine from their mobile device through an app.
In addition to that Pi mining is completely free and it only takes a few moments from your everyday life to contribute to the mining process.
Who started pi cryptocurrency
The idea started in 2019 by 3 Stanford Ph.D. graduates;
- Dr. Nicolas Kokkalis ( Ph.D. in Computer Engineering and teaches Decentralized Applications of Blockchain at Stanford)
- Dr. Chengdiao Fan ( Ph.D. in computational anthropology, and her work for the Pi Network is focused on social computing)
- Vincent McPhillip ( Ph. D. in Stanford’s Graduate School of Business)
The 3 of them met in Stanford and their common vision in combination with their different academic skills resulted in the creation of the Pi Network.
The roles of Pi network
When you choose to become a miner you will play one of the following roles in the Pi network;
- Pioneer. A user who earns Pi by confirming that he is a human every 24 hours.
- Contributor. A contributor mines at a higher rate by adding other users in his security circle.
- Ambassador. An ambassador earns Pi by inviting users to join the Pi network.
- Node. A user who is a pioneer, a contributor and also running the Pi node software on his desktop or laptop computer.
All of the above roles are necessary for the Pi network to become reality, thus every single user despite his role is rewarded with Pi on a daily basis.
So every user that is being active and contributes in the network is considered to be miner of the Pi digital coin.
The source code of the network is public, meaning that the creators are trying to get skilled programmers involved in the project and achieve high standards of quality inside the network.
At the same time the fact that the source code of Pi network is open to everybody means that there is no intention to be a scam.
The Pi network phases
The network consists of a total of 3 phases.
Let’s have a brief explanation about each step of this promising network.
Phase 1
The name has been given to this specific phase by its creators is “Design, Distribution, Trust Graph Bootstrap”.
That step operated as a faucet emulating the behavior of the decentralized system as it will function once it’s live.
During this phase every improvement necessary concerning the user interface and the system’s behaviour has been completed.
Of course at this time phase 1 came to an end with success and now we are in phase 2.
Phase 2
In a nutshell, in this phase the Pi Network has two goals to achieve;
The first one has to do with allocating as many users as it is possible.
Although we don’t have official numbers, it is said that there are more than 20 millions of users out there!
If these numbers are real we are talking about an amazing network that before even becoming fully developed it seems that is going to have an amazing dynamic in the future.
The second goal at this stage is testing the network
Phase 3
The most anticipated and interesting phase of Pi cryptocurrency is the one called “Mainnet”.
Meaning that Pi Network will join other cryptocurrencies in the market, where they are prescribed an exchange value with fiat currencies like the USD or Euro.
Currently the Pi Network is in position to enter the third phase since the environment is ready but it has not listed on a crypto exchange yet.
Our verdict on what is Pi cryptocurrency
Pi network is an interesting crypto project that allows normal people to mine crypto coins using their mobile phones. The mining does not drain the phone’s battery and that is the main reason it is considered to be planet friendly. Pi has not listed from any crypto platform yet, which means that you are not able to buy and sell it for fiat money.
FAQs
How much will Pi coin be worth?
Although Pi mainnet has not launched yet, certain crypto exchanges use its “I owe you” (IOU) price. As a result, its price fluctuates from $40 to $100.
Who is the founder of pi cryptocurrency?
Pi crypto was created by 3 PhD candidates of Stanford university. These are Chengdiao Fan, Vincent McPhillip and Nicolas Kokkalis who combined their academic knowledge to create an innovative idea.
How many pi coins are there?
According to its whitepaper, the Pi network offers a total supply of 2,100,000,000 PI.
