Can Pi Network (PI) Recover User Trust as Pi Coin Free-falls 78% Just Weeks After Launch, With More Token Unlocks and Delays on the Horizon?

From top 10 to tumblingIn February, Pi Network (PI) burst onto the scene with the kind of hype most cryptocurrencies only dream of.

Can Pi Network recover user trust as Pi Coin free-falls 78% just weeks after launch, with more token unlocks and delays on the horizon?

From top 10 to tumbling

In February, Pi Network (PI) burst onto the scene with the kind of hype most cryptocurrencies only dream of. The long-awaited mainnet launch of Pi Network finally happened, and within days, the token was rolling in the top 10 by market cap.

Its price soared to an all-time high of $2.98 on Feb. 26, and for a brief moment, it was rubbing shoulders with industry giants. However, fast-forward to Apr. 2, and the picture looks far less glamorous.

As of press time, Pi Coin is trading at just $0.66, a steep 78% drop from its peak just over a month ago. The crash has wiped out around $14.5 billion in market value, dragging its capitalization down from nearly $20 billion to just $4.56 billion.

The picture gets even murkier when we zoom out. This month alone will see over 124 million Pi tokens being unlocked, according to data from blockchain explorer PiScan. And this is just the beginning.

Monthly unlocks will keep climbing, peaking at 233 million in July. Altogether, more than 1.53 billion new tokens will hit the market over the next year, pushing total circulating supply to 8.2 billion.

That’s a massive jump for a network that already sits at 6.7 billion in supply and is aiming for a maximum cap of 100 billion. At this pace, Pi is quickly earning a reputation as one of the most inflationary digital assets out there.

Meanwhile, exchange support remains uneven. OKX was the first major platform to list Pi, followed by Bitget, Gate.io, and MEXC, with Gate.io currently leading in trading volume.

But the token still hasn’t made it to most tier-1 exchanges. Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, and Bybit have all stayed away. In fact, Bybit’s CEO went as far as calling Pi a “scam,” a label that Pi's developers strongly deny.

So, what’s really happening behind the scenes of Pi Network? And with more tokens set to flood the market, what can investors expect in the coming weeks and months?

Glitches, delays, and dead ends

Behind Pi Coin’s steep price drop lies a web of internal frictions — issues that have less to do with market sentiment and more to do with operational breakdowns and a lack of transparency from the people in charge.

One of the biggest sources of frustration for Pi users is the KYC process.

This step is mandatory for users to migrate their mined Pi tokens to the mainnet, which means no transactions, no withdrawals, and essentially no access to the value they believe they’ve earned.

However, reports indicate that despite the Open Network launch on Feb. 20, and the extended KYC and migration grace period till Mar. 14, the Pi Core Team has struggled to process the backlog for its estimated 60 million-plus users.

The switch from third-party provider Yoti to a proprietary KYC system was meant to improve scalability, but technical glitches, such as “Tentative Approval” statuses that stall progress, have left many users in limbo.

Some estimates suggest that only around 14 million users have successfully migrated, highlighting a severe capacity issue.

Social media platforms, especially X, are filled with firsthand accounts of Pi users grappling with this broken experience.

One user shared how her Pi coins were initially marked as migrated, then unexpectedly returned without any explanation, leaving her stuck in a loop of reconfirmations and waiting.

I’m stuck here 🙄My Pi was migrated, then unexpectedly marked as “Returned” without any prior notice. It was migrated again, I reconfirmed my migration wallet, and yet I’m still waiting! Am starting to feel like this is all a scam.

Another reported losing 1,427 Pi tokens simply because his migration didn’t complete before the grace period expired, despite being in the queue the whole time.

🥵 This Pioneer lost 1427 $Pi due to MISSING THE GRACE PERIOD DEADLINE According to the Pioneer he was in the migrations queue, he was waiting for his migration.Is that even fair, does that even make sense? Losing Pi due to waiting, in a situation where you can't do…

Stories like these have fueled anger and anxiety, especially among those who spent years mining the token with the hope of eventual access.

What’s intensifying the backlash is the lack of transparency from the Pi Core Team, often referred to as PCT, in keeping its cards too close to its chest.

There’s been little communication on major aspects of the roadmap. Users