What is Pi Network? Why is Pi currency a fraud?

Pi NetworkIt is a digital currency that can be extracted or mined with a mobile phone. This is the most common definition associated with network pie. But how accurate is this definition? What is pie network and what are its goals? Is pie network a scam? In this article we will answer these questions.

Maybe you have been invited by your friends to register and participate in different social networks and messengers in recent years. Pai Network is a project with attractive promises, but without foundation, which have not yet been implemented after 4 years since the publication of its white paper, and for some time now, in addition to the digital currency community, it has also involved ordinary people, especially in Iran.

The advertising fever of digital currency Pi Network now and in 2023 has subsided to a great extent compared to three years ago. However, since there are still people following this project, we will answer these questions in this article and investigate the claim that Pie Network is a scam project.

What is pie network?

Pi Network It is a currency that claims The first digital currency It is the world that extraction phone will be Now that we are in 2023, Pie Network is still worthless. This digital currency is not listed in any exchange and cannot be bought or sold. Pi network also claims that no battery is needed to mine this digital currency and the mining process will be possible with a mobile phone.

Therefore, pie network is a digital currency that:

• It introduces itself as the first digital currency with the ability to mine with a phone
• It has not yet been released and its release date is not known
• It has no specific blockchain and wallet
• It cannot be bought and sold
• It owes its fame to advertisements and social networks

Let’s take a look at Pie Network’s official website.

The image below is a photo of the first page of Pi Network’s website.

As you can see, this claim can be seen on the first page of the project’s official website: “The first digital currency that you can mine on your phone”. This claim is nothing more than a lie! (We will explain the reason in the next part.)

Pi Network developers are yet to announce the number of coins in circulation. Also, the supply limit of this token is still to be announced. Due to the fact that Pie Token is not listed on any exchange, there is practically no historical data available to check its performance.

Of course, on December 29, 2022, the Huobi Global exchange announced the listing of Pie Network. Following the announcement of this news, the value of Pi token increased by 461.3%. However, Pi Network’s team announced in a statement that it has not given permission for the token to be listed on exchanges.

In fact, the whole thing that made Pie Network popular was the claim that it could be mined simply by installing a software on a mobile phone. Since currencies like Bitcoin require a lot of processing power and expensive devices for mining, the idea of ​​mining with a phone was and still is attractive to many.

But this is if such a thing is practical and there is a detailed plan for it. The evidence so far shows that Pi Network has not come up with any specific plans and that is why it is considered by many to be just a scam project.

In the next part, we will answer the question why Pi Network is a scam.

Is pie network a scam?

reasons So much for Being a fraud on the network There is. Some of these reasons are:

• A false claim has been registered on the first page of Pi Network’s website
• Foot has no specific purpose and is more of a means than a goal
• Its white paper is not precise and full of generalities
• The structure of the white paper is clumsy
• Its technical description is incomprehensible and wrong

Now let’s examine each of these reasons separately.

The first lie on the front page!

On the first page of the website, there is a big lie and Pai Network has introduced itself as: “The first digital currency that you can mine with your phone.”

Theoretically, on paper, any hardware with processing power can be used to mine all digital currencies, even Bitcoin. Of course, mobile phone mining is not profitable at all, but just know that on paper, all digital currencies can be mined with a mobile phone.

Also, veterans in the field are probably familiar with the cryptocurrency Electroneum. Electronium and a few other projects had long ago presented the idea of ​​mobile phone mining. So the first and perhaps the most important thing that has been proposed as one of the features of Pie Network is nothing more than a lie.

The foot has replaced the means to the goal

By examining this site further, we will understand what the purpose of Pi Network is and what it is for. Pai claims to make the mining process easier. Pai Network considers mining to be a difficult task that consumes a lot of energy and considers its goal to facilitate this process.

But the point to be noted is that easy mining cannot be the goal. Even the whole mining process is not a goal, but a means to secure the network, which itself has other goals.

For example, Bitcoin aims to provide a method for decentralized peer-to-peer payments where there is no double-spending problem. Ethereum aims to provide smart contracts on a decentralized platform. The purpose of Polkadat is to establish communication between different blockchains. But what is the ultimate goal of the Pi Network blockchain?

It is discussed in general in the white paper

Anyone who has ever taken a quick look at the whitepapers of major blockchain projects will notice the unprofessional and promotional aspects of Pi Network. You don’t need to have special technical knowledge to review Pi Network’s white paper.

Just flip through it and compare it with the white paper of projects like cardano. A quick glance can tell the difference between a good project and a clumsy scam.

One of the general rules in identifying fake projects and scams in the field of digital currencies is that the project owners do not talk about technical details. A good project is one in which all conceptual and technical details are well explained.

The white paper tries to compare Pi to Bitcoin, while the authors do not have the slightest knowledge of the technical details of Bitcoin. They seem more interested in comparing themselves to Bitcoin than detailing their project.

A clear example of generalization in this article is the Roadmap section. In the Pi network roadmap, it is briefly stated that this project consists of three parts: design, testing and final implementation of the main network.

The question is, is there any project that does not have these three stages? All projects generally go through these three stages, and it is these details that make each project’s roadmap different from another.

In addition, it should be determined in detail on what date the project will reach what stage of development. For example, in the image below you can see the roadmap of the Ton Coin (TON) project.

The structure of the white paper is clumsy

Those with graduate education know how an academic essay should be structured. This white paper looks nothing like an average article and more like a blog post.

For example, the article ends with a road map. While we know that every valid article ends with a summary section and finally citing sources. Pie Network’s whitepaper is like a 100-page book that ends on page 37!

The technical explanation is incomprehensible and wrong

In a part of the white paper, the amount of supply of this coin (or token!) has been discussed. We will examine this matter further.

The final supply of this token is obtained from the sum of the three numbers M, R and D. R is the reward for referrals (inviting others), which is a percentage of M. D is also the developer bonus, which is a percentage of the sum of M and R. So, to calculate R and D, we must first have M. In this article, a formula for calculating M is given:

M=∫f(p)dx

In this regard, p is the number of people who participate in the mining process. f also represents a function whose variable is p. The first drawback of the formula is that there is no information about the function f, and we practically do not know what the integral is supposed to be taken from.

The second problem is that the function variable is different from the integral variable. Of course, this issue does not create a problem in the integration process, but the answer of the integral will be a bivariate function of x and p, the upper and lower limits of which we do not know!

Actually, instead of being a number, M is a bivariate function plus a constant number that we don’t know the limits of any of the variables, nor the constant number!

Also read: What is a white paper and how to read it?

What are the strengths of Pie Network?

Along with all the negatives we mentioned, Pie Network has features that its fans usually cite. for example:

• Pi Network developers are from Stanford University
• Pi Network is listed on CoinMarketCap and several major exchanges
• Pie Network application has been downloaded more than 50 million times
• It’s free to try and it doesn’t hurt!

If you ask your doubts about this project to the people who invite you to it, they will make these claims in response. We will examine these claims further.

The developers of the project are from Stanford University

Nicolas Kokkalis, Chengdiao Fan, and Vincent McPhillip are credited as the early developers of Pi Network.

Kokalis and Fan are husband and wife and are still connected with Pai Network. McPhillip, but in February 2021 without any explanation to announce He said that the Pi team has left the network and left questions about the reason for leaving this team suspiciously unanswered.

McPhillip wrote in his statement:

I must announce that I no longer have any connection with Pai Network. I’m sorry to have to be so cryptic, but because I have a pending lawsuit in Santa Clara County Superior Court, my attorney has advised me not to comment further.

According to themselves, both Kokalis and Fan have PHDs from Stanford University, and of course, their names can be seen on a page on the Stanford University website that is related to one of the university’s graduate courses in the field of human-computer interaction.

However, even assuming that the two main developers of Pi Network have a prestigious academic background at Stanford University, studying at a famous university cannot in any way indicate the good intentions of the developers of a project. For example, Do Kwan, the founder of Terra (Luna) network, who is now facing various accusations in South Korea and America, including fraud, also received a degree from the same university.

Pi Network is listed on CoinMarketCap and several major exchanges

One of the latest Pi Network news that has been noticed by the followers of this plan is the addition of this token’s name to Coin Market Cap, and this claim is true by itself; But for several reasons, it is misunderstood and there are important points that are not taken into account in this story.

Coinmarketcap basically takes no responsibility for the currencies it lists on its platform and we have seen many times in the past that information about various scam projects has been provided on this website. Therefore, the presence of Pie Network’s name in Coin Market Cap does not bring any credit to this project.

In the following, we will explain the information about the current price of Pi Network digital currency in Coin Market Cap, as well as the tokens that are available with the name Pi Network in digital currency exchanges, have nothing to do with the project we are talking about.

Coin Market Cap has introduced 6 exchanges, including the relatively famous Huobi exchange, as the buying and selling markets of Pie Network. Pi Network website and the pages of this project in social networks, however, say that the main and open network of this project has not been launched yet, and what exists now is introduced by the Pi Network team as an Enclosed Mainnet, which interacts with the outside. does not have.

These talks of the Pie Network team are available in the form of an announcement on the website of this project and have even been placed on the main page of the site to attract attention.

What is the reason for the digital currency not being listed on Pie Network?

In this announcement, Pi Network team has clearly said that “the listing of their token in any of these exchanges has not been confirmed by Pi Network” and has also warned its users that making transactions to exchanges “It is a violation of Pie Network policies and can cause harm to Pie users.”

In addition, the same exchanges listed in Coin Market Cap have closed Pi deposits and withdrawals to their platform, and this means that even assuming that Pi withdrawals are available for users, it is not possible to deposit this token to these exchanges for trading.

All in all, it must be said that what is presented in the exchanges and even the information provided in Coin Market Cap as Pi Network Token only carries the name of this project, it does not exist on any blockchain and therefore the price in Coin Market Cap It cannot be considered as the digital currency price of Pie Network.

The Pi tokens you see on exchanges are, at best, an “IOU” or “debt”. An IOU can be defined as: an informal document that shows how much of an asset one party owes to another.

Two important points about IOUs are that the repayment time is not specified in them and, as mentioned, they are informal; That is, most of these documents, which may be in the majority of tokens in the exchange, do not create a legal obligation for the parties.

All in all, considering the distorted history and the uncertain future of Pie Network and the fact that it is not clear what the price of each unit of Pie will be even if its main network is launched, trading tokens with the same name as Pie in exchanges is also very risky and is not recommended in any way.

Pie Network app has been downloaded more than 50 million times

Another claim of the fans of this project is that the software introduced by this team is available on Google Play and has been downloaded more than 50 million times, and this shows the validity of the project.

First, we need to know that it has happened many times that Google mistakenly placed malicious software in Google Play and later removed them. So this issue cannot be an indication of the validity of a software.

Second, the large number of downloads of this software is due to receiving rewards with a link and invitation ID (referral). People who don’t have the slightest information about it, start downloading software that might bring them windfall money one day. So don’t be happy with this number!

The test is free

Proponents of the project say that there is no need to invest capital to participate in the mining of this currency, so even if the project does not go anywhere, we will not lose.

Mining that is done through hardware, but does not use any electricity or data, is not mining. This software will only show you a number that increases over time, a number that has no value.

The claim of not injecting capital is true, but fraud does not always happen with financial methods. By participating in this project, you have given your precious time, personal information and hardware to those who you have no knowledge of and their goals, and you do not know for what purpose your phone and millions of other people will use it.

What is the method of transferring digital currency through the network?

In the Pi Network application, there is a section called “Pi Browser” in which a section called “wallet.pi” is embedded. Some users claim that by doing KYC in Pi Browser, they have managed to enable the possibility of transferring their Pis to other active accounts of this application.

But the main point here is that the possibility of authentication has not yet been activated for most users of this application. Some users say that before the authentication process starts, they are faced with a message that this possibility is closed, and others have reported that after sending their identity documents, their account was not verified and their balance remained untransferable. It should be noted that identity documents of Iranian citizens are also not accepted.

This whole process seems highly suspicious for a project that claims to be a decentralized and open network, and in general, even if the possibility of sending identity documents for your user account was enabled in this program, considering the possibility of misuse of your personal information during this Process, Not recommended at all to authenticate.

Frequently asked questions

Conclusion

There are many problems with this project, only some of them were mentioned in this article. Pi Network’s promotional activities and development process from day one have been inconsistent with the fundamental values ​​of the digital currency space, including decentralization, privacy, and transparency.

Also, as a general rule, when even grandmothers are promoting a project and a viral marketing plan is used for it, the project will go nowhere.

So far, no credible person has introduced this project, the activities of the Pie Network team have never been transparent, and it is not clear what this project does with the personal data of its users.

If you are still looking to know what Pi Network is and how you should buy this digital currency, then we must say directly that you are dealing with a scam project. So don’t fall for the empty promises of this project and don’t fall into its trap. Advise those around you not to spend their time on the pie scam project.

Remember that the increase in the number of those who fall into the trap of fraudulent projects will cause the general public and regulators to distrust digital currencies, and as a result, the acceptance and acceptance of these assets in society will be delayed. The mission of the digital currency community is to inform people about Ponzi schemes and scams.