The European Banking Authority (EBA) has published a consultation paper outlining how it plans to calculate fines for crypto asset issuers that breach the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework. The proposal—released June 26—signals that regulators intend to move from rulemaking to consistent, standardized enforcement for “significant” token issuers.

Under the draft methodology, the EBA would apply a structured two-step process: it would first establish a baseline severity for an infringement and then adjust the result based on aggravating or mitigating factors. The framework is designed to cover significant asset-referenced tokens (ARTs) and significant e-money tokens (EMTs), with penalty caps intended to be large enough to deter major market players.

Key takeaways

• The EBA’s June 26 consultation sets out a standardized method for determining MiCA-related fines for issuers of “significant” ARTs and EMTs.
• Fines could reach statutory ceilings of up to 12.5% of annual turnover for significant ART issuers and up to 10% for significant EMT issuers, or up to two times the profits from the violation.
• The EBA’s enforcement “teeth” arrive as MiCA licensing requirements take effect on July 1, ending a transitional period for many firms.
• Crypto firms that miss licensing deadlines face operational constraints—and potentially the very types of conduct targeted by the EBA’s fine methodology.
• Executives have a consultation window until September 28 to comment on the EBA’s approach, but the July 1 compliance deadline leaves little time for adjustments in practice.

A penalty playbook for MiCA breaches

MiCA is the EU’s landmark digital asset regulation, built to bring order to the market by requiring token issuers and crypto service providers to meet bank-like compliance expectations—covering issues such as consumer protections and capital reserves—to access the bloc’s single market.

In its consultation paper, the EBA focuses on enforcement for significant tokens as defined under MiCA. The document proposes a consistent approach to fines rather than leaving penalty levels to ad hoc determinations. According to the EBA, the methodology begins by evaluating the baseline seriousness of an infraction and then accounts for behavior-specific circumstances, such as factors that would increase or reduce culpability.

The proposed ceilings are explicitly framed as punitive. The consultation states that final penalties could be set up to statutory maximums of 12.5% of annual turnover for issuers of significant ARTs and 10% for issuers of significant EMTs. The paper also references a cap of two times the profits generated by the violation, a design intended to prevent companies from treating enforcement risk as a cost of doing business.

EBA’s consultation paper (June 26) lays out the framework in more detail, including the procedural steps the authority would use when calculating penalties.

MiCA licensing deadline turns the calendar into a compliance cliff

The fine methodology arrives at a moment when the industry is already facing a hard operational deadline. By July 1, crypto companies must have obtained formal licenses from national regulators to legally offer services across the EU and to market stablecoins within the 27-nation bloc. The deadline ends the transitional period that allowed some operators to continue functioning under less stringent local rules.

The EBA’s penalty methodology is therefore more than a theoretical enforcement blueprint. Companies that fail to secure regulatory authorization by July 1 could be forced to halt or narrow certain activities. The timing also raises the risk of triggering conduct that falls under the types of non-compliance the EBA’s framework is meant to penalize.

Earlier coverage from Cointelegraph also highlighted that the July 1 deadline would constrain firms unable to complete MiCA authorization processes in time. In practical terms, that means executives and compliance teams may be operating under uncertainty while regulatory paperwork catches up—right as the EBA is preparing to standardize what happens when rules are broken.

Binance’s EU restrictions underscore the operational impact

One of the clearest real-world signals comes from Binance. According to Cointelegraph, the exchange notified European Union users that it would restrict access to some services after it failed to secure MiCA authorization from a member state ahead of the July 1 deadline. The reported reason was that Binance withdrew its MiCA license application in Greece.

As users shared notices on social media, Binance indicated that it would stop onboarding new EU users and limit certain services for EU-based accounts effective July 1. The notices also stated that withdrawals would remain available after that date, aligning with regulatory expectations that customers should be able to exit their positions even when trading or onboarding restrictions apply.

The timing matters for market participants because it suggests a likely pattern: without authorization, major venues may shift from growth mode to risk containment. For users, that translates into fewer options for new entry, while for institutions and market makers it can affect liquidity planning and compliance coverage across jurisdictions.

Cointelegraph reported that Binance saw substantial daily net outflows around the announcement, citing DefiLlama data. The exchange’s subsequent outflow figures over the following two days were also reported by Cointelegraph, reflecting how quickly liquidity can move when regulatory access changes.

EU enforcement in focus as the US relies more on action-by-action

Beyond the specific penalty mechanism, the EBA consultation highlights a broader enforcement posture. By publishing a clear fining methodology just as MiCA licensing takes effect, EU authorities appear to be emphasizing predictability and deterrence—leaving less room for interpretation that enforcement might be gradual or forgiving.

This contrasts with a more enforcement-driven approach often associated with the United States, where regulatory outcomes can depend heavily on case-by-case actions. In the EU’s model, the framework aims to define the penalty logic upfront, providing firms with a clearer sense of the regulatory “cost of non-compliance” if they operate without the required authorizations or breach MiCA obligations.

The EBA also set a consultation period that runs until September 28, giving industry participants time to lobby for changes to the fine methodology. Still, the practical reality is that companies must operate compliantly well before the EBA’s final guideline is locked in—meaning the July 1 deadline will test compliance systems first, and only then will firms try to influence the methodology through formal feedback.

As the consultation deadline approaches, market participants should watch whether national regulators align quickly on implementation details and how quickly firms adapt their compliance programs ahead of and after July 1—because the EBA’s penalty framework will likely shape boardroom decisions long before any final rules are formally adopted.

Bitcoin (BTC) is heading for its worst monthly loss since mid-2022, with BTC down roughly 18.5% in June as price struggles to hold the psychological $60,000 support level.

BTC/USD monthly chart. Source: TradingView

Will Bitcoin’s downside momentum extend in July, or is BTC preparing for a recovery?

Key takeaways:

• Bitcoin’s liquidity map shows a major short-liquidation “magnet zone” near $67,600.
• BTC has historically gained 7.6% on average in July, while midterm-year seasonality points to an even stronger 10.3% average return.

Bitcoin may hit $75,000 in July

July may become a “bullish month for Bitcoin,” according to analyst Fleh, who predicted BTC price to rally toward $75,000 next month.

The bullish thesis is based on Bitcoin’s Binance BTC/USDT liquidation heatmap, which shows a large concentration of short liquidation levels sitting above the current price.

On the monthly chart, the strongest visible liquidity cluster sits near $67,645, where the chart shows around $247.39 million in liquidation leverage and roughly $2.26 billion in cumulative short liquidation leverage.

Binance BTC/USDT liquidation heatmap (1 month). Source: CoinGlass

For beginners, such clusters are often called “magnet zones.” When many leveraged positions are concentrated around the same price area, the market can move toward that zone because liquidations create forced buying or selling pressure.

In this case, significant liquidity sits above Bitcoin’s current price near $60,000.

If BTC rebounds and pushes toward $67,600, short sellers may be forced to close their positions. Since closing shorts requires buying Bitcoin back, that can add fresh upside pressure and fuel a short squeeze.

“I think $BTC bottoms here at 60k for now, targeting 75k to the upside before any chance of lower,” Fleh said in a Saturday post.

BTC rises 7.6% on average in July

Bitcoin’s historical monthly returns also support Fleh’s bullish July outlook.

BTC has returned a 7.6% gain on average in July, making it one of its stronger months after a typically weaker June, which shows an average return of -1.40%, according to CoinGlass data highlighted by analyst CGT_Trader.

Bitcoin monthly returns tracking the July performance in since 2013. Source: CoinGlass/CGT_Trader

The trend has appeared even during bear market years.

For instance, Bitcoin rose 20.96% in July 2018 and 16.8% in July 2022. More recently, BTC gained 2.95% in July 2024 and 8.13% in July 2025, strengthening the case for another green month ahead.

A separate midterm-year seasonality chart also shows that- Bitcoin has averaged a 10.3% gain during the month, its strongest monthly return in such years.

Bitcoin performance by month during US mid-term election years. Source: More Crypto Online

That compares with an average 17% loss in June, pointing to the possibility of a post-sell-off mean-reversion bounce.

Based on Bitcoin’s current price near $60,000, its historical July average return of 7.6% projects a move toward roughly $64,500, while the stronger midterm-year average of 10.3% points to about $66,100.

A repeat of Bitcoin’s bear-market July rebounds from 2022 and 2018 would put BTC between $70,000 and $72,500, while a 2020-style July rally would bring Fleh’s $75,000 target within reach.

BTC’s dip below the 200-week SMA may extend slide

Bitcoin’s ongoing drop below its 200-week simple moving average (200-day SMA, the blue line) near $62,445 raises the risk of further downside in July.

BTC/USD weekly chart. Source: TradingView

A similar loss of long-term moving-average support preceded deeper weakness during the 2022 bear market, when BTC continued lower before forming a bottom.

Related: Bitcoin faces fresh capitulation risk as 50K BTC moved at a loss

Bitcoin’s bear flag breakdown raises the odds of a price decline toward $55,000 in July unless BTC quickly reclaims the 200-day SMA.

BTC/USD daily chart. Source: TradingView

The European Banking Authority on Friday unveiled a sweeping framework to penalize cryptocurrency issuers that violate the European Union’s digital-asset laws, signaling a tougher enforcement stance as the trade bloc finalizes its historic regulatory architecture.

The consultation paper published June 26 establishes a standardized playbook for hitting non-compliant issuers of what the EBA considers “significant” tokens with potentially multimillion-euro penalties. Under the proposal, the Paris-based watchdog will deploy a strict two-step process to determine fines, assessing the baseline severity of an infraction before factoring in aggravating or mitigating behavior.

The move represents the sharpening of teeth for the EU’s landmark Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation. Introduced to bring order to a historically freewheeling sector, MiCA is the world’s first comprehensive regulatory regime for digital assets, forcing token issuers and crypto service providers to operate with bank-like compliance, consumer protections and capital reserves if they want access to the single European market.

The stakes for non-compliance are explicitly designed to be punitive. According to the EBA’s consultation paper, final penalties could reach statutory ceilings of 12.5% of annual turnover for issuers of significant asset-referenced tokens and 10% for significant e-money tokens, or two times the profits generated by the violation, caps meant to deter even the largest global digital-asset operators.

Cover screenshot of European Banking Authority’s 14-page consultation paper.
Source: EBA

The roll-out of the penalty framework comes at a critical juncture for Europe’s digital asset industry, landing just days ahead of a crucial July 1 deadline. By the start of next month, cryptocurrency firms must have secured formal licenses from national regulators to legally offer their services or market stablecoins within the 27-nation bloc, ending a transitional grace period that allowed many operators to function under looser local rules.

Related: Binance faces EU service limits next week as MiCA rules take effect

Firms that fail to secure their regulatory passports by July 1 face the prospect of being forced to halt operations entirely or risk triggering the exact infractions, such as unauthorized public disclosures or organizational failures, that the EBA’s new framework is built to penalize.

Binance pushes “pause” on EU operations after license fail

The world’s biggest exchange operator, Binance, last week notified European Union users that access to key services will be restricted after the exchange failed to secure MiCA authorization from a member state before the July 1 deadline after it withdrew its MiCA license application in Greece.

Those restrictions include halting the onboarding of new EU users and limiting certain services for EU-based accounts effective July 1, according to exchange notices shared by users on social media.

Notice sent by Binance to customers in Poland. Source: IT_Tech_PL

The notices said users will still be able to withdraw their assets after that date, stating that “all digital assets are still available for withdrawal,” in line with applicable regulatory requirements.

Binance recorded $1.96 billion in daily net outflows on Wednesday, following its withdrawal announcement, according to DefiLlama data viewed by Cointelegraph on Sunday. The exchange then saw another $2.52 billion and $1.46 billion in net outflows over the following two days.

EU move shows sharp contrast with US enforcement approach

The timing underscores the European Union’s broader strategy to position itself as the dominant global standard-setter for digital finance, contrasting sharply with the regulation-by-enforcement approach seen in the United States. By laying out clear financial penalties right as the licensing mandate takes effect, authorities in Brussels are telling the market that the era of leniency is officially over.

The industry now has a three-month consultation window ending September 28 to lobby for changes to the EBA’s penalty methodology. However, with the July 1 licensing cliff edge just days away, executives will have to navigate an unforgiving compliance environment long before the final fining guidelines are formalized under law.

Pi Network lets tens of millions of people “mine” crypto by tapping a button on their phone once a day, with no hardware, no electricity bill, and no drained battery. That sounds too easy to be real mining, and in a sense it is not. Here is what Pi mining actually does, how the Stellar Consensus Protocol underneath it works, and what your daily tap really secures.

Pi mining is the process by which Pi Network distributes its PI tokens to users who confirm their participation through a mobile app and contribute trust relationships to the network, rather than by solving the energy-intensive computational puzzles that power Bitcoin mining. That distinction is the single most important thing to understand about Pi, because the word “mining” carries heavy baggage from Bitcoin, where it means racing thousands of specialized machines to solve cryptographic problems and consuming enormous amounts of electricity in the process. Pi uses the same word for something almost entirely different. A Pi user opens an app once every 24 hours, taps a button, and is credited with newly minted PI.

No puzzle is solved, no hardware is strained, and no meaningful electricity is consumed. This has made Pi one of the most-downloaded crypto apps in the world, with tens of millions of users, and also one of the most debated, because the obvious question is how something so effortless can be called mining at all, and what, if anything, the daily tap actually accomplishes. The answer lies in the consensus mechanism Pi is built on, a system called the Stellar Consensus Protocol, and in a reframing of what “mining” means. In Bitcoin, miners contribute energy and computation to secure the ledger, and they are rewarded for it; in Pi, the contribution is different.

Users supply trust relationships, vouching for people they know, and those relationships aggregate into a structure the network uses to agree on which transactions are valid. This guide explains how that works from the ground up. It covers why Pi rejected proof-of-work in the first place, how the Stellar Consensus Protocol reaches agreement without energy-intensive competition, what Security Circles are and how they feed the network, the four roles a participant can play, what the daily tap genuinely does as opposed to what users often assume, a worked example of how one person’s activity flows into consensus, why the mining rate falls over time, and the criticisms and limits that any honest account has to include. By the end you will understand both the clever idea at the heart of Pi and the real questions that surround it.

What Pi mining actually is

Begin by stripping the word “mining” of its Bitcoin associations, because they cause most of the confusion. In Bitcoin, mining is the work of validating transactions and securing the ledger by solving cryptographic puzzles, and the energy spent doing it is what makes the network hard to attack. Pi mining is not that. When a Pi user taps the lightning button in the app, the phone does not solve anything, does not validate transactions, and does not run any heavy computation.

What the tap does is twofold: it signals that the user is a real, active human participating in the network, and it keeps that user eligible to receive newly distributed PI tokens. In Pi’s own framing, mining is the act of making a contribution to the consensus algorithm in order to secure the ledger, in exchange for rewards, but the contribution a mobile user makes is not energy. It is trust. That is why Pi mining is better understood as a combination of two things: a distribution mechanism and a trust-gathering mechanism.

As a distribution mechanism, it is the way PI tokens are handed out fairly to a large population without requiring anyone to buy expensive equipment, which is the project’s central pitch of accessibility. As a trust-gathering mechanism, the daily check-in and the connections a user makes feed into the network’s way of telling real participants apart from bots, which matters because a system that gives away tokens to anyone who taps a button needs some defense against people creating thousands of fake accounts to farm rewards. The daily tap, and especially the trust relationships a user builds, serve that defense. This is why Pi places so much emphasis on identity verification and on the social connections between users: the whole model rests on being able to distinguish genuine humans from fake ones, and the “mining” activity is partly how it gathers the raw material to do that.

Calling it mining is a marketing choice that borrows Bitcoin’s vocabulary, but mechanically it is closer to a daily proof-of-participation than to anything involving computation. For readers comparing the two models, the model Pi rejected is proof-of-work, where miners expend computation and electricity to secure the chain. Pi’s design replaces that energy cost with a trust-based participation model. The tradeoff is accessibility on one side and a different set of security assumptions on the other.

Why Pi does not use proof-of-work

To understand why Pi works the way it does, you have to understand what it is reacting against. Bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies use a consensus mechanism called proof-of-work, in which participants called miners compete to solve a difficult mathematical puzzle, and the first to solve it gets to add the next block of transactions and earn a reward. Proof-of-work is genuinely secure and has protected Bitcoin for over a decade, but it has two consequences that Pi’s founders saw as barriers. The first is energy: the global competition to solve puzzles consumes vast amounts of electricity, which is both an environmental concern and a cost.

The second is access: because the competition rewards raw computing power, serious mining requires specialized, expensive hardware and cheap electricity, which puts it out of reach of ordinary people and concentrates it among well-resourced operators. Pi Network was founded by two Stanford researchers, Nicolas Kokkalis and Chengdiao Fan, with the explicit goal of making cryptocurrency accessible to anyone with a smartphone, and proof-of-work was incompatible with that goal. A system that demands costly hardware and large electricity bills cannot, by design, be opened to billions of ordinary phone users. So Pi needed a fundamentally different way of reaching consensus, one that did not depend on burning energy or owning powerful machines, while still allowing the network to agree on a single, valid history of transactions without a central authority in charge.

That requirement led the project to a different family of consensus mechanisms, one built not on computational competition but on trust between participants. The choice it landed on was the Stellar Consensus Protocol, and understanding it is the key to understanding everything Pi does, because it is what allows a phone tap to stand in for the energy a Bitcoin miner would otherwise spend. Pi’s own explanation of mobile mining also frames the design this way, saying its consensus algorithm is adapted from SCP and Federated Byzantine Agreement rather than proof-of-work. The shift from work to trust is the core design decision behind Pi mining.

The Stellar Consensus Protocol, explained

The Stellar Consensus Protocol, usually shortened to SCP, is a way for a decentralized network to agree on the state of a shared ledger without proof-of-work, and it was created by David Mazières, a computer scientist associated with the Stellar blockchain. Its underlying model is called Federated Byzantine Agreement, and the core idea is a genuine departure from how Bitcoin works. Instead of every participant competing, or relying on a fixed, predetermined set of validators chosen by a central authority, each participant in an SCP network decides for itself which other participants it trusts. The set of validators that a given participant chooses to trust is called its quorum slice.

Crucially, no central body assigns these trust relationships; each node selects its own, which is what makes the system both open and decentralized. Consensus then emerges from the overlap of these individual trust choices. When enough of the participants that a node trusts, and enough of the participants they in turn trust, all agree on a transaction or a block, that agreement propagates across the network until a global decision forms. In plainer terms, nodes reach agreement by exchanging messages and aligning with the peers they trust, and because trust relationships overlap and interlock across the whole network, a decision that begins locally spreads until the entire system converges on it.

There is no puzzle to solve and no energy to burn; the security comes from the structure of overlapping trust rather than from computational work. This is why the Stellar Consensus Protocol can run on modest hardware and reach agreement quickly with low energy use, which is exactly the property Pi needed. The protocol has well-studied properties of open membership, flexible trust, and fast, low-bandwidth messaging, and it is a real, respected approach to consensus, not something Pi invented. What Pi did was adapt SCP and layer on top of it a way to gather the trust relationships from a mass of ordinary mobile users, which is where Security Circles come in.

Security Circles and the global trust graph

The bridge between millions of phone users and the Stellar Consensus Protocol is a feature called the Security Circle. Each Pi user is encouraged to build a Security Circle by adding a small number of people, typically three to five, whom they personally know and trust. This is a deliberately human act: you are vouching for specific individuals, asserting that they are real people you have reason to trust. On its own, one person’s Security Circle is a tiny thing, a handful of trust links.

But Pi’s design aggregates every user’s Security Circle into a single, enormous structure called the global trust graph, a map of who trusts whom across the entire network of tens of millions of users. This global trust graph is what feeds Pi’s consensus mechanism, and it is the mobile user’s actual contribution. Where a Bitcoin miner contributes energy, a Pi mobile user contributes trust relationships and the active, daily confirmation of them. The individual Security Circles become the raw material from which the network builds its quorum slices, the overlapping trust sets that the Stellar Consensus Protocol uses to reach agreement.

The graph also serves a defensive purpose that is central to Pi’s whole proposition. Because the network distributes tokens to participants, it is a tempting target for people who would create armies of fake accounts to harvest rewards, an attack known as a Sybil attack. The trust graph is Pi’s main defense: if real humans only add other real humans they know to their circles, then fake accounts struggle to embed themselves in the web of genuine trust, and the network can prioritize the accounts that sit within dense, authentic trust relationships over isolated or suspicious ones. This is why the social dimension of Pi is not incidental but foundational, and why Pi’s identity-based design belongs in the broader debate about proving real humans in crypto.

The security of the whole system is meant to rest on the authenticity of the trust relationships that ordinary users build, which is also one of the model’s most debated features. If users build careful circles with people they genuinely know, the graph can become a useful Sybil-resistance layer. If users add strangers just to boost earnings, the quality of the graph weakens. That tension is central to understanding both Pi’s accessibility and its open questions.

The four roles: Pioneer, Contributor, Ambassador, and Node

Pi organizes participation into four roles, and understanding them clarifies who does what in the network. The most basic role is the Pioneer, which is simply a user who opens the app once every 24 hours and taps the button to confirm they are a real, active human and not a bot. Pioneers are the foundation of the user base, and the daily check-in is the minimum act of participation that keeps a user earning. The Pioneer role, on its own, does not validate transactions or secure the ledger in any direct technical sense; it confirms presence and keeps the rewards flowing.

The second role is the Contributor, which is a user who actively builds a Security Circle by adding trusted people. This is the role through which a user supplies the trust relationships that feed the global trust graph, so Contributors are the ones doing the work that actually matters for the consensus mechanism, even though that work consists of nothing more technical than choosing which people to vouch for. The third role is the Ambassador, a user who grows the network by referring new members, typically rewarded with a boost to their earning rate for doing so. Ambassadors expand the network’s reach, though, as critics point out, referral-based growth is also the feature that draws comparisons to multi-level marketing.

The fourth and most technically significant role is the Node. Node operators run Pi’s node software on a computer, not a phone, and it is these computer nodes that perform the heavy lifting of actually running the consensus algorithm and validating transactions, using the trust graph that all the mobile users have collectively built. The four roles together describe a division of labor: Pioneers prove they are real and keep earning, Contributors supply trust, Ambassadors grow the network, and Nodes do the actual computational work of reaching consensus. Recognizing that the validation happens at the Node level, not on phones, is essential to understanding what mobile “mining” really is.

What the daily tap really does

Here is the honest core of how Pi mining works, the part that promotional descriptions tend to blur. When you tap the button each day as a Pioneer, you are not validating transactions, you are not running the consensus algorithm, and you are not securing the ledger in the way a Bitcoin miner secures Bitcoin. What you are doing is two specific things. First, you are confirming that you are a real human who is actively present, which keeps your account in good standing and keeps you eligible to receive PI.

Second, through your Security Circle and your ongoing confirmation of those trust links, you are contributing to the global trust graph that the network’s computer nodes use to reach consensus. Your phone is a source of trust data, not a validator. The crucial point, in Pi’s own words, is that the heavy lifting of running the consensus algorithm based on the trust graph still falls to computer nodes. The mobile phones create and confirm the trust relationships; the nodes use those relationships to do the actual work of validating transactions and securing the ledger.

So when a Pi user says they are “mining,” what is really happening is that they are feeding the security model with trust and keeping their reward stream active, while the computational securing of the network happens elsewhere, on the node layer. This is not a criticism so much as a clarification, because it explains both why Pi mining can be so effortless and why it is so different from what most people picture when they hear the word mining. The effortlessness is real because the user truly is not doing computational work. The contribution is real too, but it is a contribution of trust and presence, not of energy or computation.

Understanding this distinction is the difference between thinking you are personally securing a blockchain with your phone and understanding that you are providing one input, trust, into a system whose actual validation happens on computers run by node operators. That is also why “mining” in Pi should not be evaluated with the same checklist as Bitcoin mining. The daily tap is closer to proof of participation and identity maintenance than to proof-of-work. The right question is not whether the phone solves blocks, because it does not, but whether the trust graph and node layer mature enough to secure a real network.

A worked example: how one Pioneer’s activity flows into consensus

To make this concrete, follow a single user through a day. Imagine a Pioneer named Maria who has had the Pi app for a few months. Each morning she opens the app and taps the lightning button, which starts a 24-hour earning cycle and credits her with PI at her current rate. That tap, on its own, simply tells the network that Maria is a real, active human and keeps her rewards flowing.

So far, nothing about the ledger has changed; Maria has only confirmed her presence. The part that feeds the network is Maria’s Security Circle. Some weeks ago, Maria added five people she knows personally, her sister, two close friends, a coworker, and a former classmate, to her Security Circle, vouching for each as a real, trustworthy person. Those five trust links are Maria’s contribution to the global trust graph.

When the network’s computer nodes run the Stellar Consensus Protocol to agree on the next set of transactions, they draw on the vast web of trust relationships that Maria and tens of millions of other users have built. Maria’s five links are a tiny but real part of the overlapping trust sets, the quorum slices, that the nodes use to reach agreement, and because Maria’s circle connects to her contacts’ circles, which connect to theirs, her small contribution is woven into the larger structure that lets the whole network converge on a shared, valid history. If Maria also chose to run node software on her computer, she would move into the Node role and take part directly in the validation work; as a Pioneer with a Security Circle, she instead supplies trust that the nodes consume. The reward she receives for her daily tap is, in effect, payment for her presence and her trust contribution.

This is the full loop of Pi mining at the level of one person: tap to prove presence and earn, build a circle to contribute trust, and let the node layer turn that aggregated trust into consensus. The example also shows why Pi’s model is both accessible and contested. Maria did not need an ASIC miner, a warehouse, or a power contract, which is the whole point. But the quality of her contribution depends on the authenticity of her trust choices, and the strength of the network depends on millions of similar choices being honest.

The mining rate and why it falls

A practical feature that surprises many new users is that the rate at which they earn PI is not fixed; it falls over time, by design. Pi built in a declining emission schedule loosely modeled on the way Bitcoin’s block reward halves over time, intended to create scarcity as the network grows. In Pi’s history, the base mining rate has dropped sharply at population milestones: it halved as the network crossed 1 million users, halved again at 10 million, and has continued to decline as the user base has grown into the tens of millions. A Pioneer today earns a small fraction of what early users earned for the same daily tap.

The logic is that rewarding early participants more generously bootstraps the network, while tapering rewards as it grows prevents the supply from expanding too fast and preserves some scarcity. On top of the declining base rate, a user’s actual earnings are shaped by multipliers tied to the roles described earlier. Building a Security Circle increases your rate, referring new users as an Ambassador adds a boost, engaging with apps in the ecosystem can contribute, and some users choose to lock up their PI for a period in exchange for a higher rate. So two users tapping on the same day can earn quite different amounts depending on how much they have contributed to the network’s trust and growth.

All of this sits against the backdrop of Pi’s very large maximum supply, on the order of 100 billion tokens, of which only a portion is currently in circulation. That large supply, combined with the way new tokens enter the market as users complete verification and move their balances onto the live network, is a structural factor that weighs on the token’s price, a dynamic worth keeping in mind alongside the mechanics of how the mining itself works. For readers following the market side, how mined Pi reaches the market explains why unlocks, migration, and supply absorption matter after tokens become transferable. The declining rate is, in part, the project’s attempt to manage that supply, rewarding participation while trying not to flood the market.

Risks, criticisms, and what mining really secures

An honest explanation of Pi mining has to address the genuine criticisms and limits, because they go to the heart of what the model is and is not. The most fundamental point, already noted, is that mobile “mining” does not secure the ledger the way proof-of-work does. The daily tap proves presence and feeds the trust graph, but the actual validation runs on computer nodes, and the security of the whole system rests on the trust graph being authentic and on the node network being sufficiently decentralized and robust. That leads directly to the central criticism: the trust-based security model is debated.

Its strength depends on real humans adding only other real humans to their circles, and skeptics question how reliably that holds at a scale of tens of millions of users, and how resistant the system truly is to manipulation if trust links can be gamed. Centralization is another recurring concern. For much of its life Pi has operated with significant control held by its founding team and foundation, including over key aspects of the network and the pace of its decentralization, which sits uneasily with the decentralized ideal that the consensus model is meant to embody. The node network that does the real validation is still maturing, and the degree to which it is truly decentralized is a fair question.

Critics also point to the referral mechanics, the Ambassador role and its rewards for recruiting new users, as resembling the structure of multi-level marketing, where growth is driven by recruitment, and they note that the long period during which Pi could be mined but not traded or used invited skepticism about whether the tokens would ever have real value. There are technical limits too, including questions about the network’s transaction throughput and its capacity to serve a user base of its claimed size. None of this means Pi is necessarily a scam, a charge its supporters reject by pointing to its real technical development and large verified community, but it does mean a clear-eyed user should understand exactly what their daily tap does and does not accomplish. You are not single-handedly securing a blockchain with your phone.

You are providing trust and presence to a system whose validation happens on a node network, in exchange for tokens whose ultimate value depends on the project delivering real utility and decentralization over time. That is the honest picture of what Pi mining secures, and what it does not. For price-focused readers, where the mined token trades is a separate question from how the mining mechanism works. For consensus comparisons, another way networks reach consensus shows how other systems use locked capital rather than proof-of-work or Pi’s trust graph.

Frequently asked questions

This article is educational information, not financial advice. Details of Pi Network’s mechanics, mining rate, supply, and development reflect information available as of June 28, 2026, and can change. Pi Network is a debated project, and its token’s value and future remain uncertain. Verify current details from official sources and consider your own circumstances before participating or making any decision.

SBI Holdings is a financial services group with businesses spanning securities, banking, insurance, asset management and venture investing with a market capitalization of about $11 billion. The Tokyo-based company is one of Japan’s most active traditional-finance participants in digital assets, with stakes and partnerships across crypto trading, liquidity, tokenization, stablecoins and blockchain-based settlement.

Bitbank is one of the country’s largest licensed cryptocurrency exchanges, offering spot trading, custody and other digital-asset services to retail and institutional clients.

Cheaper, quicker to buy

Crypto mergers and acquisitions have remained brisk in 2026 as banks, payments firms and exchanges race to build regulated digital asset businesses rather than develop them in-house.

The industry has recorded 144 deals worth $11.8 billion so far this year, according to data from Architect Partners, with buyers increasingly targeting exchanges, custody providers, data firms and stablecoin infrastructure as regulatory clarity draws more institutional capital into the sector.

According to Payne, the Bitbank acquisition is about more than customer growth. The deal brings a Financial Services Agency-licensed exchange, one of Japan’s deepest altcoin liquidity pools and an institutional custody business, Japan Digital Asset Trust, giving SBI capabilities that would be far more costly and time-consuming to build internally.

The acquisition comes at a pivotal moment for Japan’s crypto industry. Legislation passed by the country’s lower house on June 11 would shift crypto assets under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, aligning them with securities regulation. The reforms lower the tax rate on crypto gains to a flat 20% and pave the way for spot bitcoin BTC$60,008.64, ether (ETH) and XRP exchange-traded funds, while simultaneously imposing more stringent capital, custody and disclosure requirements on exchanges.

Mow is not the first to argue that bitcoin’s traditional four-year cycle has changed. After bitcoin climbed to a then-all-time high before the April 2024 halving, several analysts suggested growing institutional demand following the launch of U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs could alter the pattern that has historically followed each halving. Others, however, argued it was too early to conclude the cycle had changed.

$55,000 more likely

Not everyone agrees. Several analysts have recently argued that bitcoin is either close to a market bottom or still has further to fall, although they rely on different indicators and models.

CoinDesk market analyst Omkar Godbole recently wrote that if you were “wondering just how much lower bitcoin is likely to drop, the answer, at least according to one historically accurate contrarian indicator, is not much.”

That indicator is based on bitcoin’s 50-week and 100-week simple moving averages. The 50-week average, representing roughly one year, is very close to dropping below the 100-week line, forming what analysts call a “bear cross.” Historically, similar signals coincided with market bottoms, leading some analysts to see the pattern as bullish.

More recently, Markus Thielen, the founder of 10x Research, said he believes the bottom is more likely at $55,000 and not until somewhere between August and October. Arthur Hayes, the BitMex co-founder, took a more bearish position, saying bitcoin would bottom at around $40,000 within the next six months.

Michael Saylor shared a StrategyTracker chart on X this Sunday showing Strategy holds 847,363 bitcoin valued at $50.88 billion as of June 28, 2026, with 113 purchase events and an average cost basis of $75,653 per BTC.

That chart displays orange bubbles for MSTR’s buys overlaid on bitcoin price history, highlighting aggressive accumulation especially in 2024-2025 with the average purchase price line trending upward.

“We’re gonna need more charts” signals Saylor’s intent for continued bitcoin purchases, generating more data points as Strategy maintains its position as a leading corporate BTC holder.

Last week, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said he remains bullish on bitcoin but that Saylor’s approach to funding bitcoin purchases has damaged the wider cryptocurrency market, as the preferred stock at the center of Strategy’s model fell to a record low.

Strategy’s (MSTR) stock fell 8% lower Thursday to $86, amid concerns about its ability to meet dividend obligations. However, Saylor’s treasury still has 10 months of dollar reserves available to cover STRC’s dividend obligations. MSTR is currently priced at $82.31 following a further 3.54% drop. STRC hovers around $74.57 after a 1.48% increase on Sunday.

XRP is trading near $1.05 as buyers continue to defend the $1 level after a weak month. 

The token is down more than 7% over the past week and about 19% over the past 30 days, while its 24-hour range sits between $1.04 and $1.07.

The price action remains weak, but several market signals show that XRP has not lost all support. ETF inflows remain positive, daily active addresses are rising, and some analysts now point to early reversal patterns on the daily chart.

XRP trades near $1 after sharp monthly decline

XRP holds a market rank of #6, with market capitalization near $65.4 billion. Its 24-hour trading volume stands above $1.1 billion, showing that activity remains strong even as price stays near recent lows.

The token remains far below its all-time high of $3.65 from July 2025. It has also fallen more than 50% over the past year and about 49% over the past 200 days, showing that the current weakness is part of a longer downtrend.

A recent XRP price prediction noted that XRP is trading near a 20-month low. The same report said $1 has become the key level to watch, with downside support near $0.85 and $0.70 if that area fails.

That makes the current setup simple. XRP needs to hold $1 to avoid a deeper technical breakdown. A strong move above $1.12 and then $1.27 would be needed before traders can argue that momentum is shifting back toward buyers.

ETF demand stays positive despite weak price

XRP fund flows continue to stand out against Bitcoin and Ethereum. On June 26, XRP ranked first in single-day net inflows at about $15.63 million, while spot Bitcoin ETFs saw about $444.51 million in outflows and Ethereum funds lost about $12.85 million.

The weekly trend also remains positive. XRP spot ETFs have now posted seven straight green weeks, with roughly $144.69 million in net inflows over that stretch, according to SoSoValue data.

This is not the same pattern seen in Bitcoin and Ethereum. Over the same seven-week stretch, Bitcoin ETFs recorded about $7.73 billion in outflows, while Ethereum ETFs lost around $1.18 billion.

A previous fund flow report showed XRP products had already beaten Bitcoin and Ethereum for five straight weeks. Another CLARITY Act analysis said XRP ETFs had drawn roughly $1.44 billion in cumulative inflows through six weeks of buying, even as price remained weak.

That contrast is important for the current XRP price analysis. It suggests that fund demand has not been enough to lift the token yet, but it may be helping to slow deeper losses near $1.

On-chain activity and chart signals improve

Analyst Ali Charts said XRP network activity has risen over the past two weeks. Daily active addresses climbed from about 23,000 on June 14 to nearly 39,500, pointing to higher on-chain participation.

Rising active addresses can show more users interacting with the network. It does not guarantee a price recovery, but it gives traders another data point at a time when price is testing a key support level.

Ali also pointed to two bullish reversal signals on the daily chart. He said the Tom DeMark Sequential indicator printed a “9” buy signal, which can sometimes appear before a short relief rebound lasting one to four daily candles.

He also said the past three daily sessions formed a Morning Star Doji pattern. That pattern is often used by technical traders to identify a local bottom after a downtrend.

If buying volume rises from here, Ali said XRP could move toward $1.30. That level also lines up with earlier resistance areas from recent price action.

A prior XRP technical report said traders were watching $1.20 as a recovery level, with $1.24 and $1.30 as the next zones if buyers pushed through resistance.

Derivatives reset may shape the next move

Acccording to CryptoOnchain, XRP derivatives have gone through a heavy deleveraging phase. Long liquidations jumped to nearly $3 million over the past week, up more than 800% from the prior month.

Open interest also fell from about $1.18 billion to roughly $1.04 billion. At the same time, funding rates turned deeply negative, showing that traders who were positioned for upside have been forced out.

That type of reset can cut speculative excess from the market. It can also create conditions for a sharp move if short sellers become crowded and spot buyers remain steady.

The spot side looks calmer than futures. Binance reserves were nearly flat over the week, suggesting holders are not rushing to move XRP to exchanges for immediate sale.

The next signal will come from open interest and funding rates. If open interest starts to recover while price holds $1, traders may read it as a healthier reset. If XRP loses $1 with rising volume, the market may shift back toward $0.85 and $0.70 support.

Ripple’s wider ecosystem also remains in focus after RLUSD became available in Japan through SBI VC Trade. The stablecoin launch gives Ripple a new regulated channel in Asia, though XRP’s short-term direction still depends on price action, fund flows, and whether buyers can defend the $1 level.