Pi Network officially launched its open mainnet today at 8:00 AM UTC. The launch ended investors’ wait and mining for the past six years.
The long-anticipated transition from an enclosed mainnet, which had been operational since 2021, will now allow “pioneers” to trade their Pi coins freely and integrate with external networks. Pi coin surged over 40% within the first hour of the mainnet launch.
Open mainnet wait is over: Pi network’s journey to launch
As explained by the Pi Network core development team, the project has undergone four stages: the beta phase, testnet, enclosed mainnet, and open mainnet.
The first phase, launched on March 14, 2019, focuses on user acquisition and testing the mobile mining application. Users had their first experience with Pi’s mining model, where they could mine Pi coins by tapping a button once every 24 hours on their smartphones.
The Pi network team reportedly asked node operators to help make sure the blockchain was stable enough to handle transactions for a large user base when it moved to the testnet phase on March 14, 2020.
In December 2021, Pi entered the enclosed mainnet phase. The blockchain was fully operational, but a firewall was mounted to restrict any external transactions and block activity outside of the ecosystem.
The period allowed pioneers to complete Know Your Customer (KYC) verification and migrate their Pi coins to the live blockchain.
The final transition to the open mainnet on Thursday removed these restrictions, allowing Pi to connect with external networks and function as a fully open blockchain.
With the open mainnet, developers on the Pi blockchain can launch their decentralized applications (DApps) and make them available to the broader crypto industry. However, the developers have yet to release this feature, and the dates are yet to be announced.
According to Pi Network’s blog, over 100 applications have already been built within the Pi ecosystem, covering sectors like decentralized finance, gaming, and online marketplaces.
Pioneers can now move their tokens to external wallets of crypto trading platforms, as it is now trading on several centralized exchanges, including OKX, Bitget, and MEXC.
Pi coin price volatility post-exchange listings
Following the open mainnet launch, PI’s price experienced significant volatility. Within the first hour of trading, the token surged 41%, reaching a high of $2.10, according to CoinGecko data. The slight price surge preceded market fluctuations, which began due to market speculations on social media and FUD, causing the coin to drop to $1.3.
At press time, Pi Coin was trading at $0.90 on OKX and most exchanges, a huge contrast from speculative IOU prices of $55 to $70 that market trackers had cited in the build-up to the launch. Pi network enthusiasts predict the token will reach $300 by next August, and a notable rally will begin when the project’s developers launch the functionality of DApps.
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