Crypto World

How does Pi mining work? The tech behind the tap

Published

1 month ago

28 June 2026

How does Pi mining work? The tech behind the tap

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.

Summary

Pi mining is not computational mining in the Bitcoin sense; it is a daily check-in that distributes PI tokens and feeds a trust graph the network uses to reach agreement.
Pi runs on a version of the Stellar Consensus Protocol, a Federated Byzantine Agreement system that reaches consensus through overlapping groups of trusted participants instead of energy-intensive proof-of-work.
Mobile users contribute their trust relationships through Security Circles, while the actual transaction validation runs on computer nodes, not on phones.
There are four roles, Pioneer, Contributor, Ambassador, and Node, and the daily tap mainly proves you are a real human and keeps your token rewards flowing.
The model trades the energy cost and hard security guarantees of proof-of-work for accessibility, and it depends on honest trust circles and a node network that is still maturing.

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

Is Pi mining real cryptocurrency mining?

Not in the way Bitcoin mining is. Bitcoin mining involves solving cryptographic puzzles with specialized hardware, consuming large amounts of energy, to validate transactions and secure the ledger. Pi mining involves tapping a button in an app once a day, which solves nothing and consumes no meaningful energy. What the tap does is prove you are a real, active human and keep you eligible for PI rewards, while the trust relationships you build feed the network’s consensus mechanism.

The actual transaction validation runs on computer nodes, not phones. So Pi uses the word mining, but mechanically it is closer to a daily proof-of-participation than to computational mining.

What is the Stellar Consensus Protocol?

The Stellar Consensus Protocol, or SCP, is a way for a decentralized network to agree on a shared ledger without proof-of-work, created by computer scientist David Mazières. It uses a model called Federated Byzantine Agreement, in which each participant chooses for itself which other participants it trusts, forming what is called a quorum slice. Consensus emerges when these overlapping trust choices align across the network, so a decision spreads until the whole system converges on it. Because security comes from the structure of overlapping trust rather than from computational work, SCP uses little energy and can run on modest hardware, which is why Pi adapted it for mobile use.

What does tapping the button actually do?

Two things. First, it confirms you are a real human who is actively present, which keeps your account in good standing and your PI rewards flowing. Second, combined with your Security Circle, it contributes to the global trust graph that the network’s computer nodes use to reach consensus. What it does not do is validate transactions or secure the ledger directly; your phone is a source of trust data, not a validator.

In Pi’s own description, the heavy lifting of running the consensus algorithm falls to computer nodes, while mobile users supply the trust relationships those nodes rely on. So the tap is about presence and trust, not computation.

What is a Security Circle?

A Security Circle is a small group of people, typically three to five, whom a Pi user personally knows and trusts and adds to their account, vouching for them as real, trustworthy individuals. On its own a Security Circle is just a few trust links, but Pi aggregates every user’s circle into a single global trust graph spanning the whole network. That graph is the mobile user’s real contribution: it feeds the consensus mechanism and serves as the network’s main defense against fake accounts, since genuine humans adding only other genuine humans makes it harder for bot armies to embed themselves in the web of authentic trust. The social authenticity of these circles is foundational to Pi’s security model.

Why does my Pi mining rate keep dropping?

By design. Pi built in a declining emission schedule, loosely modeled on Bitcoin’s halving, to create scarcity as the network grows. The base rate has halved at population milestones, dropping as the network passed 1 million and then 10 million users, and continuing to fall as it reached the tens of millions, so a Pioneer today earns a fraction of what early users earned. Your actual earnings also depend on multipliers from building a Security Circle, referring users, engaging with the ecosystem, and optional lockups.

The declining rate is partly an attempt to manage Pi’s very large maximum supply of around 100 billion tokens, rewarding early participation while trying to limit how fast new supply enters.

Is Pi Network legitimate, or is it a scam?

It is truly debated, and this guide does not resolve it. Supporters point to real technical development, the adaptation of a respected consensus protocol, and a large verified community as evidence that Pi is a serious project. Critics raise concerns about centralized control held by the founding team, the maturity and true decentralization of the node network, referral mechanics that resemble multi-level marketing, the long period when Pi could be mined but not used, and questions about the network’s technical capacity. A clear-eyed view is that Pi is a real project with real open questions, and that any user should understand exactly what their daily tap accomplishes and treat the token’s ultimate value as uncertain instead of assured.

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.

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Crypto World

Strategy Posts $8.2B Q2 Loss as Coinbase Revenue Falls 19%

Published

8 seconds ago

2 August 2026

NewsAdmin

Leading Bitcoin treasury company Strategy’s results for the second quarter show a loss of over $8 billion, while crypto exchange Coinbase reported a 14% quarterly revenue loss.

According to the two companies’ latest earnings reports released on Thursday, Strategy lost over $8.23 billion in its operations after recording an unrealized loss of $8.32 billion in the second quarter of 2026. The largest crypto exchange by volume in the U.S., Coinbase, also suffered a 19% annual revenue decline, while its trading volumes went down 24% to slightly above $145 billion.

Q2 2026 Bitcoin Price Cooldown Sees Strategy Draw Losses

Strategy grew its BTC holdings by 846 units within the three-month period ending June 30. In its report, the company’s chief executive, Phong Le, said it reduced its convertible debt to just under $7 billion and increased its U.S. dollar holdings and Bitcoin per share by 12% and 5%, respectively. The Bitcoin treasury had seen a $10 billion income in the second quarter of 2025, but Bitcoin’s dull price performance this year has supposedly caused a net loss of $8.22 billion.

“Our objective is for STRC to trade over time at $99 to $100. If STRC trades below $100, we intend to repurchase STRC shares in a regular and disciplined manner, scaling our repurchases according to market price and liquidity. These repurchases are an attractive use of capital that reduces our future preferred dividend requirements at a discount while allowing independent market demand to establish a healthy and sustainable market,” the CEO explained.

In the total revenue column for the quarter, Strategy announced it had a 6.9% increase in the last 12 months, jumping from $114.5 million in Q2 2025 to over $122 million in Q2 2026. The gross profits made by the company’s business reached $81.6 million, which it counted as a 69% gross margin compared to the previous year’s second quarter’s $78.7 million.

“In the midst of this phase of muted bitcoin sentiment and market skepticism, we continue to evolve our business model and establish Digital Credit as a new asset class. Our plan is to return STRC to health with stable demand, high liquidity, and low volatility trading near par. We believe this is the best way to create shareholder value over the long term,” executive chairman and founder Michael Saylor told reporters.

Coinbase Revenue Drops after Trading Slump, Prediction Market Thrives

Meanwhile, Coinbase’s first half of the year continues to yield lower-than-expected earnings following a continued loss trend in both quarters, but its prediction market sector has risen by more than $100% quarter-over-quarter. The exchange revealed its revenue had taken a 19% hit in the 12 months ending June 30, and its transaction revenue dropped 21%. As seen in the report on net losses, the trading company’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization reached $208 million, while it recorded over $300 million in losses after adjustments.

Coinbase’s fee collection from subscriptions and services slumped by 5% in the quarter but accounted for almost half of its net revenue in that period. Consumer transactional revenue also fell by 20% compared to Q1 2026, which the company attributed to a 24% decline in crypto spot trading volume. At the end of the quarter, the average amount of USDC held across Coinbase products hit a record high of $20 billion, accounting for more than 30% of all USDC in circulation.

The post Strategy Posts $8.2B Q2 Loss as Coinbase Revenue Falls 19% appeared first on CryptoPotato.

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FTX Case Advances as Polymarket Dispute and $35K Penalty Emerge

Published

5 hours ago

1 August 2026

NewsAdmin

Federal prosecutors are continuing to litigate the fallout from the collapse of FTX, as defense teams push back on what juries can hear and how certain market activities are regulated. In the Southern District of New York (SDNY), Michelle Bond—whose husband, former FTX executive Ryan Salame, is serving a 90-month sentence after pleading guilty in 2023—has asked the court to block references to that guilty plea in a campaign finance case.

At the same time, other SDNY-related crypto-adjacent legal fights are highlighting how prediction markets and event contracts can collide with insider-trading and commodity regulation arguments. Separate actions involving a former congressman’s Kalshi trades and a US soldier accused of making a large Polymarket bet underscore that courts may soon be forced to clarify both evidentiary rules and the legal classification of event contracts.

Key takeaways

Michelle Bond’s legal team asked SDNY to exclude evidence tied to Ryan Salame’s guilty plea, arguing it has little relevance to Bond’s alleged intent or knowledge.
In a separate CFTC case, former New York Rep. George Santos was ordered to pay $35,000 over trades on Kalshi’s event contracts, with the regulator citing misleading posts about his planned attendance at the 2026 State of the Union.
A US soldier accused of earning more than $400,000 on Polymarket event contracts is seeking dismissal, challenging whether the Commodity Exchange Act can clearly apply to event contracts as “swaps.”
Across these matters, the central pressure points are evidentiary fairness for defendants and regulatory clarity for prediction-market participants.

Bond seeks to bar Salame’s guilty plea in campaign finance fight

According to a Friday filing in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, Michelle Bond’s attorneys asked the court to preclude the government from introducing evidence about Ryan Salame’s guilty plea or any “related plea materials” in her campaign finance case.

Bond faces charges over alleged unlawful campaign funding tied to her unsuccessful 2022 congressional run in New York. The prosecution’s theory, as described in the filing, is that contributions supporting Bond’s campaign were partially funded through FTX arrangements facilitated by Salame.

Salame pleaded guilty in 2023 and is currently serving a 90-month sentence connected to conduct arising from FTX’s 2022 collapse. In Bond’s motion, her lawyers argued that Salame’s plea—where he admitted to making political contributions in Bond’s name funded by transfers from accounts associated with an FTX-linked entity—should not be treated as evidence against Bond herself.

“The Court should preclude the government from introducing or referring to Mr. Salame’s guilty plea or any related plea materials, because their minimal probative value is substantially outweighed by the risk of unfair prejudice to Ms. Bond,” the filing states.

Bond’s team further said that the plea materials do not meaningfully bear on Bond’s state of mind. They characterized the plea as an admission of Salame’s own guilt, not proof of Bond’s knowledge or participation in the charged conduct, quoting from the motion: “[…] Mr. Salame’s plea materials lack any probative value as to Ms. Bond’s guilt, knowledge, or intent. Mr. Salame’s plea is an admission of his own guilt, not evidence of Ms. Bond’s state of mind or participation in any charged offense.”

How personal litigation could become part of the argument

Bond’s motion also requested that the court allow information connected to her “contemporaneous divorce and custody proceedings.” Her lawyers appear to be positioning that personal context to rebut the government’s characterization of Bond as an “ordinary ‘individual’ donor,” despite her and Salame having divorced before the alleged criminal conduct.

While the filing’s request reflects a broader strategy often used in criminal litigation—attempting to shape how jurors interpret the campaign contributions and the parties’ relationship—the court’s decision will determine what personal-history evidence, if any, is ultimately presented.

CFTC penalizes George Santos for Kalshi event-contract trading

Separate from the FTX-linked litigation, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has issued an order involving George Santos, a former member of the US House of Representatives who was expelled from Congress in 2023. The CFTC ordered Santos to pay $17,500 in a civil monetary penalty plus $17,570 in disgorgement from profits earned through prediction market trading on Kalshi.

According to the CFTC, the relevant trades were tied to event contracts betting on whether Santos would appear at the 2026 State of the Union in Washington, DC. The regulator said Santos posted on social media about his plans to attend or not attend the event, and that these posts contained “material misrepresentations and omissions.”

The CFTC added that after the posts, contract prices moved in a direction favorable to Santos’ positions, enabling him to earn over $17,500.

As part of the CFTC order, Santos is barred from trading on prediction market platforms for three years.

The case also sits in the shadow of Santos’ criminal proceedings. Earlier coverage notes Santos was sentenced to 87 months in prison in 2025 for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, though he served only three months before his sentence was commuted by US President Donald Trump, as reflected in the article’s background.

Polymarket insider-trading allegations tested under “swap” debate

A more direct challenge to prediction-market regulation is underway in another SDNY matter. Gannon Ken Van Dyke, a US soldier accused of making more than $400,000 trading Polymarket event contracts, is attempting to dismiss the indictment.

As outlined in the background of the case, prosecutors allege that Van Dyke traded using nonpublic information connected to a military operation involving the removal of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January. The US Department of Justice alleges he used that alleged insider information to wager on whether Maduro would be removed from power, leading to criminal charges filed in April.

In a Friday SDNY filing, Van Dyke’s attorneys submitted a 51-page memorandum supporting a motion to dismiss. Among other arguments, they contend that the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) is ambiguous in how it treats event contracts as “swaps,” which is relevant to three of the charges.

Van Dyke’s lawyers argue that the ambiguity affects basic fairness: if the “swap” definition is not clear across Congress, agencies, and courts, ordinary citizens may lack “fair notice” that their prediction-market wagers fall under the CEA.

“If Congress, executive branch agencies, and courts all find the ‘swap’ definition ambiguous, how can ordinary citizens have fair notice that prediction market wagers are covered by the CEA?” the filing asks.

The defense also contrasts with the position taken by the CFTC under Chair Michael Selig, which has argued it has “exclusive jurisdiction” over prediction markets by treating event contracts as “swaps.” The dismissal motion suggests that—at least for some counts—those jurisdictional assumptions may not survive if the law is too unclear.

Why these cases matter beyond one courtroom

Taken together, the filings point to two urgent fault lines for the crypto-adjacent prediction market space: what evidence courts allow juries to consider when guilt and intent are contested, and whether the regulatory framework—especially the CEA’s treatment of event contracts—offers enough clarity for enforcement.

As courts weigh motions like Bond’s request to exclude plea materials and Van Dyke’s bid to dismiss based on legal ambiguity, traders, builders, and public officials using event-contract platforms may want to watch how judges define relevance, prejudice, and “fair notice.” The next procedural rulings could signal how far prosecutors can stretch existing statutes—and how tightly defendants can force regulators to justify their classification theories.

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Crypto Hacks Drain $1.1B in First Half of 2026 Amid 212 Security Incidents

Published

6 hours ago

1 August 2026

NewsAdmin

The first half of 2026 was the most active six months for crypto exploits on record.

This is according to a new report from Blockaid, which shows hackers stole $1.1 billion across 212 incidents.

Crypto Hacks Top $1.1B in H1 2026

The Blockaid report found that four major incidents involving KelpDAO, Drift, Resolv, and CoW Swap made up roughly $707 million of the total losses.

KelpDAO suffered the largest loss, after hackers stole $292 million worth of crypto by faking a cross-chain message that siphoned off the protocol’s Ethereum reserves. Drift Protocol, a perpetuals exchange built on the Solana chain, also suffered a similarly huge hit, as it was exploited for $285 million within 12 minutes.

Blockaid linked both cases to TraderTraitor, a state-sponsored North Korean subset of the larger Lazarus Group. Humanity Protocol’s $32 million loss was also connected to the same attacker cluster, bringing DPRK-linked losses to $609 million, which is about 55% of all funds stolen during the period.

The pace of attacks also increased through the year, with monthly incidents going from 18 in January to 57 in June. April proved to be the most painful month, as the KelpDAO and Drift Protocol hacks wiped out a combined $577 million to push total losses in that month to $635 million.

Privileged key misuse was the most costly attack type in the first half of 2026, with losses of approximately $790 million, or close to three-quarters of all funds stolen in the period, said Blockaid. Unbacked mint exploits came second in value, led by the $80 million Resolve breach. But the hacks at the code level caused the most casualties, accounting for nearly four out of five attacks by count.

Attack Vectors Change as New Threats Emerge

The report named AI agents as a new target after hackers in May used a prompt injection attack to fool Bankr’s AI agent into approving an unauthorized transaction for about $216,000.

Cross-chain bridges also took a major hit, with attackers breaching the verification systems of KelpDAO and Taiko through forged proofs and attestations accepted by the destination chains.

In addition, security teams faced newer attack methods in 2026, with Blockaid identifying four incidents involving EIP-7702 wallet delegation attacks, where a wallet can hand control to a smart contract. Legacy smart contracts also continue to be a common vulnerability, with data showing around five cases in May and June, including two involving Aztec Connect and one targeting Raydium’s AMM V3.

Recent incidents outside the report period showed the same pressure on crypto infrastructure. For instance, on July 23, AFX Trade, BSquaredNetwork, and Verus were hit in separate attacks on the same day that collectively caused more than $35 million in losses. Recall that Verus had already suffered another exploit about two months earlier, and Blockaid linked both incidents to the same bridge contract and bug class.

Recovery results varied depending on the type of attack. Per the report, code-related incidents sometimes allowed teams to freeze funds or negotiate returns, while attacks involving stolen keys usually ended with the money moving through mixers or cross-chain routes.

The post Crypto Hacks Drain $1.1B in First Half of 2026 Amid 212 Security Incidents appeared first on CryptoPotato.

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Michael Saylor and team maintain 12% dividend for STRC

Published

6 hours ago

1 August 2026

NewsAdmin

Strategy signals another bitcoin buy as company needs just 2% annual BTC growth to cover dividends

Holders of Strategy’s (MSTR) high-yielding preferred stock STRC will not see a dividend increase in August.

Led by Executive Chairman Michael Saylor, Strategy is maintaining the current 12% dividend on the shares.

STRC investors may have been expecting as much as a 50-basis-point hike in the dividend as Strategy has customarily raised the payout anytime the stock traded sizably below its par value ($100) for the month.

As recently as July 1, Strategy had lifted the dividend 50 basis points following June’s plunge in STRC to as low as $71.

While that hike — along with Strategy’s sale of some bitcoin to fund dividends, and a bit of stabilization in the price of bitcoin — helped STRC bounce in July to the current $89.46, that level is still significantly below par.

CEO Phong Le yesterday said Strategy’s Corporate Objective is for STRC to trade at $99-$100 over time.

Nevertheless, the company is under no obligation to raise the dividend and chose not to do so this month.

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Key On-Chain Legal Updates This Week

Published

6 hours ago

1 August 2026

NewsAdmin

A Friday filing in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) seeks to limit what prosecutors can use in the campaign-finance case involving Michelle Bond, the wife of former FTX Digital Markets co-CEO Ryan Salame.

Bond’s attorneys argued that evidence tied to Salame’s 2023 guilty plea—while relevant to his own conduct—should not be admitted against her because it carries a risk of unfair prejudice and, in their view, offers little direct proof of Bond’s knowledge or intent. The motion also asks the court to factor in details from Bond’s contemporaneous divorce and custody proceedings.

Key takeaways

Michelle Bond wants the court to exclude evidence and “related plea materials” tied to Ryan Salame’s guilty plea, arguing they are not probative of her state of mind.
Bond’s campaign-finance charges stem from allegations that contributions to her 2022 congressional bid were influenced by FTX-linked activity facilitated by Salame.
The SDNY motion also requests inclusion of information about Bond’s divorce and custody proceedings, contending she was not an “ordinary” donor.
Separately, the CFTC ordered former congressman George Santos to pay $35,000 in total—$17,500 in penalty and $17,570 in disgorgement—over trades connected to Kalshi prediction market event contracts.
A soldier accused of making more than $400,000 on Polymarket event contracts linked to a military operation asked the SDNY court to dismiss charges, citing ambiguity in how “swap” definitions apply to event contracts under the Commodity Exchange Act.

Bond asks SDNY to keep Salame’s guilty plea out of her case

Bond faces campaign finance charges tied to her unsuccessful 2022 congressional run in New York. According to the criminal allegations, contributions to her campaign were partly funded through FTX-related channels that were facilitated by her husband, Ryan Salame.

In the latest SDNY filing, Bond’s legal team asked the court to preclude prosecutors from introducing Salame’s guilty plea and related plea materials. The filing points to the core logic of the request: Bond is not being tried for Salame’s admissions, and the defense claims the government’s use of those materials would not meaningfully establish Bond’s guilt, knowledge, or intent.

Bond’s attorneys argued that Salame’s plea is an admission of his own conduct, not evidence about Bond’s mental state or participation in the charged offense. They said the materials’ probative value is substantially outweighed by the risk of unfair prejudice to Bond.

Prosecutors are expected to weigh heavily on the narrative connecting alleged campaign funding to the conduct of individuals tied to FTX’s collapse. Bond’s motion, however, signals an effort to narrow what jurors are allowed to consider—particularly evidence that may influence them emotionally or circumstantially rather than strictly proving the elements of the charges against her.

Why the defense is raising divorce and custody proceedings

Alongside the evidentiary dispute over Salame’s plea, Bond’s filing also requested that the court include information related to Bond’s divorce and custody proceedings that were underway around the same time as the alleged crime.

Bond’s lawyers’ position is that the circumstances of her family life affect how her campaign-related donor status should be viewed. The filing argues that Bond should not be treated as an ordinary individual donor solely because she is facing personal charges in connection with her political bid, even if she and Salame were not married at the time of the alleged conduct.

Whether and to what extent these family-law details will be admissible is likely to be a key procedural issue. It can shape the tone and framing of the case—especially if the government seeks to portray the campaign finances as closely connected to Salame’s network rather than to Bond’s independent circumstances.

George Santos ordered to pay over Kalshi predictions market trading

In a separate development involving prediction markets, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) ordered former New York representative George Santos—who was expelled from Congress in 2023—to pay a total of $35,000. The figure breaks down into a $17,500 civil monetary penalty and $17,570 in disgorgement of profits.

The regulator said the action was tied to Santos trading on event contracts on Kalshi connected to whether he would attend the 2026 State of the Union address in Washington, DC. The CFTC stated that Santos made social media posts about his plans to attend or not attend the event and that those posts contained “material misrepresentations and omissions.”

According to the CFTC, after the posts, the contract prices moved in a way that became favorable to Santos’ positions and allowed him to make more than $17,500.

As part of the same order, Santos was barred from trading on prediction market platforms for three years. The order also comes against the backdrop of criminal proceedings: Santos was sentenced to 87 months in prison for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in 2025, but served only three months before his sentence was commuted by U.S. President Donald Trump, as noted in earlier reporting.

Polymarket insider-trading allegations head toward dismissal arguments

Another SDNY filing, this time from the defense of Gannon Ken Van Dyke, challenges the legal foundation of allegations that he profited from Polymarket event contracts using nonpublic information.

The U.S. Justice Department says Van Dyke was involved in a military operation connected to the removal of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January, and prosecutors allege he later used insider information to bet whether Maduro would be removed from power—leading to criminal charges announced in April. The defense filing argues Van Dyke is facing accusations involving more than $400,000 in alleged profits from Polymarket event contracts.

Van Dyke’s attorneys filed a 51-page memo supporting a motion to dismiss the indictment based on multiple legal theories. One focus is the Commodity Exchange Act’s treatment of event contracts as “swaps,” which the defense characterizes as ambiguous.

While the CFTC under Chair Michael Selig has asserted that the agency has “exclusive jurisdiction” over prediction markets by treating event contracts as “swaps,” Van Dyke’s lawyers say the uncertainty itself is enough to dismiss at least some charges. In the filing, they argue that if lawmakers, executive agencies, and courts consider the “swap” definition ambiguous, then ordinary citizens cannot reasonably have fair notice that prediction market wagers fall under the CEA.

The case is expected to proceed on a timeline that could lead to trial in late 2026 or early 2027, based on a schedule submitted in June, and Van Dyke has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

The defense’s arguments also extend beyond Van Dyke’s personal exposure. The filing suggests the ruling could matter for lawmakers and government officials who have used prediction markets in connection with political events or public statements. Earlier coverage referenced by the filing indicates that Trump’s teleprompter operator reportedly placed more than $100,000 in bets on Kalshi event contracts tied to presidential speeches, underscoring how prediction markets can draw interest from political circles.

Across these cases, courts are being asked to decide what evidence is fair game, what definitions govern crypto-adjacent instruments, and how much clarity regulators must provide before individuals can be held criminally liable—issues that could determine how future crypto and prediction-market enforcement plays out.

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What Happened In Crypto Legal News This Week

Published

7 hours ago

1 August 2026

NewsAdmin

What Happened In Crypto Legal News This Week

Wife of former FTX executive seeks to preclude her husband’s guilty plea

In a Friday filing with the US District Court for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) over campaign finance charges, Michelle Bond’s legal team asked the court to consider precluding evidence related to former FTX Digital Markets co-CEO Ryan Salame, her husband who is currently serving a 90-month sentence after he pleaded guilty in 2023.

Bond faces campaign finance charges alleging that her unsuccessful 2022 congressional run in New York was partially funded by contributions from FTX facilitated by Salame. As part of the filings this week, Bond asked the court to exclude evidence of her husband’s guilty plea and “related plea materials,” in which the former executive admitted to making “political contributions in [his] name that were funded by transfers from the bank accounts” of an entity tied to FTX.

Bond’s lawyers added:

“[…] Mr. Salame’s plea materials lack any probative value as to Ms. Bond’s guilt, knowledge, or intent. Mr. Salame’s plea is an admission of his own guilt, not evidence of Ms. Bond’s state of mind or participation in any charged offense.”

The motion also requested the court include information related to Bond’s “contemporaneous divorce and custody proceedings,” arguing that though she and Salame were not married at the time of the alleged crime, the former FTX executive was not an “ordinary ‘individual’ donor” contributing to her campaign.

The criminal case is one of the latest involving individuals tied to the defunct crypto exchange following its 2022 collapse. Salame, former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison were all sentenced to prison for their role in the misuse of customer funds and related charges.

Former congressman ordered to pay $35,000 over Kalshi bet

George Santos, a former New York House representative who was expelled from Congress in 2023, was ordered to pay a $17,500 civil monetary penalty and $17,570 in disgorgement from profits earned over bets placed on prediction markets platform Kalshi. The order from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) stemmed from Santos trading on event contracts betting on his appearance at the 2026 State of the Union address in Washington, DC.

“While buying and selling positions in this market, Santos posted on social media about his plans to attend or not attend the SOTU,” said the CFTC. “In his social media posts, Santos made a series of material misrepresentations and omissions about whether he would attend the SOTU. After these posts, the SOTU contract prices moved in a direction that was favorable to Santos’ positions which allowed him to make over $17,500.”

February X post about his State of the Union attendance. Source: George Santos

Santos is barred from trading on prediction market platforms for three years as part of the order. He was also previously sentenced to 87 months in prison for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in 2025, but served only three months before his sentence was commuted by US President Donald Trump.

US solider accused of making $400,000 Polymarket bet seeks to dismiss charges

Gannon Ken Van Dyke is a US soldier who faces charges for allegedly making more than $400,000 on Polymarket event contracts using nonpublic information tied to a military operation involving the removal of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January. He was involved in the operation removing Maduro, according to the US Justice Department, and allegedly used insider information to bet whether the Venezuelan president would be removed from power, leading to criminal charges in April.

In a Friday SDNY filing, Van Dyke’s legal team filed a 51-page memo in support of a motion to dismiss the indictment based on different legal theories, including that the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) at the center of three of the charges was “ambiguous” in treating event contracts as “swaps.”

Although the CFTC under Chair Michael Selig has claimed that the agency has “exclusive jurisdiction” over prediction markets on the basis that event contracts are treated as “swaps,” Van Dyke’s lawyers said the lack of clarity was sufficient to dismiss some of the charges.

The case is expected to have significant implications for lawmakers and government officials using prediction markets. Trump’s teleprompter operator reportedly made more than $100,000 using Kalshi event contracts related to the president’s speeches.

Based on a schedule filed in June, Van Dyke is potentially looking at a trial beginning in late 2026 or early 2027. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Magazine: Here’s why the CLARITY Act’s ethics deal may be so hard to reach

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Crypto World

Goldman traders are on pace for a record year. A close-up look at how they’re doing it

Published

8 hours ago

1 August 2026

NewsAdmin

Goldman traders are on pace for a record year. A close-up look at how they're doing it

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Crypto World

Bitcoin cold-wallet attack spreads to 4,500 addresses as losses near $89 million

Published

8 hours ago

1 August 2026

NewsAdmin

Russia-linked Grinex exchange halts operations after $13 million ‘state-backed’ hack

The attacker working through Coldcard-generated keys is now emptying wallets worth a few thousand dollars each.

Galaxy Research flagged a third wave of sweeps early Sunday, roughly 208 bitcoin drained from 1,912 addresses between Friday midday and Saturday morning UTC.

That is just over a tenth of a bitcoin per victim. The July 30 opening wave averaged close to a full coin, 1,083 bitcoin from 1,196 addresses in 41 minutes.

Observed losses across all three waves now total 1,367 bitcoin, nearly $89 million, from 4,585 addresses.

Wave three sends each victim’s coins to its own destination rather than the handful of shared collector addresses that made the first two easy to map, and parks them in pay-to-witness-script-hash outputs, a format that can carry multisignature or timelock conditions, instead of the plain single-key outputs used before.

It batched an average of six victims into each sweep where wave one took exactly one at a time, and it scanned only the default derivation path, the standard branch of the key tree a wallet checks first, instead of testing several branches per seed.

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XRP Price Dips to ‘Battlefield’ Zone, but Analysts See Major Reversal Opportunity

Published

8 hours ago

1 August 2026

NewsAdmin

Perhaps due to the quickly re-escalating tension in the Middle East, the cryptocurrency market has posted fresh losses over the past few hours, with BTC dropping to $62,000 after failing to reclaim the $63,000 support during the day.

XRP was not spared, as it just slipped below $1.05. The asset was rejected at $1.20 during the mid-July rally after the favorable US inflation data for June, and eventually lost the coveted $1.10 support. Now, it fights for the last line of defense before the bulls would have to defend the $1.00 zone.

Popular analyst EGRAG CRYPTO outlined the significance of the $1.05 level, calling it the ‘battlefield’ region. Although he noted earlier today that the cross-border token had managed to maintain that level, he acknowledged the predominantly bearish structure of lower highs on the 4-hour chart.

The short-term path of recovery would be a successful defense of $1.05 before XRP can bounce above $1.083 and eventually reclaim the $1.10 level, which now acts as resistance.

EGRAG laid out an even more promising road ahead for the asset if it manages to continue its recovery, with the “major price target” set at $1.30.

However, a decisive breakdown below $1.05 would essentially mean that XRP will head toward the notable liquidity zone at around $1.00, he warned.

Mikybull Crypto also believes XRP has the strength to stage a surprising comeback. The analyst claimed that the asset’s bullish reversal run is currently loading despite the negative outlook.

His long-term chart compares the current market structure with the one from two years ago when XRP was highly compressed at around $0.60. Once it broke out the upper boundary, though, it rocketed to a fresh all-time high within less than a year.

“Before the last run, I screamed for you to buy at a crazy discount. The opportunity is presenting again,” he said now.

History is not on XRP’s side at the moment, though, as August has been quite a painful month for the asset. As reported earlier today, the cross-border token was deep in the red in all four previous editions.

The post XRP Price Dips to ‘Battlefield’ Zone, but Analysts See Major Reversal Opportunity appeared first on CryptoPotato.

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Pi Coin Defies Market Trend Before Key Deadline: Will the 10% Bounce Hold?

Published

9 hours ago

1 August 2026

NewsAdmin

Pi Network AmongTrending List. Source: Coingecko

Pi Coin (PI) rose 8% on Saturday to $0.0870. The move pushed the token onto CoinGecko’s trending list, days before a hard deadline for Pi Network.

Nodes are the computers that check Pi transactions. The people who run them have until August 11 to install an update. Nodes that miss it get cut off.

CoinGecko ranked PI second on its trending board on Saturday. Most other coins on that list were falling. Pi Coin was one of the few going up.

The bigger picture is less kind. While PI has gained 7% over the past week, it is still down 25% over the past month. The token is worth about $957 million in total, making it the 67th largest coin.

Pi Network (PI) Price Performance. Source: BeInCrypto

Trading stayed thin. Pi Network market data shows roughly $8.6 million changed hands in 24 hours.

Trending today are $PONS, $PI, and $TAO 🔥
Are you watching any of these? pic.twitter.com/OgCSHUv9gT
— CoinGecko (@coingecko) August 1, 2026
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What the August 11 Deadline Means

Protocol v26 is the latest step in a long chain of updates that started at version 19. Pi says it makes smart contracts safer. It also improves how the network stores data and talks to other blockchains.

“Protocol 26 is a major milestone ahead of the final planned upgrade, Protocol 27. With 8 successful upgrades completed over the past few months, these final two upgrades will bring the network up to date with the latest protocol features, improvements, and functionality,” the team noted.

Follow us on X to get the latest news as it happens

Only node operators need to act. People who mine Pi on their phones do not. Pi lists every step on its node page.

Pi nodes agree on transactions in small trusted groups, a design borrowed from Stellar. The July 22 Protocol v25 rollout added the cryptography that privacy apps need.

Why Pi Coin Rallies Keep Fading

Traders have seen this before. PI jumped 24% ahead of the July 22 update. It handed the gain back once the day arrived. The Protocol 24 mainnet upgrade in June ended the same way.

Zoom out and it looks worse. PI hit a record low of $0.0710 on July 14. It now sits 79% below where it traded a year ago.

New supply is the main drag. PiScan data cited last month showed about 1.71 billion PI unlocking over the next year. That is a heavy load for a market trading under $10 million a day.

Pi Crypto Unlock Statistics by Month. Source: PiScan.io

Protocol v27 is the last planned update. Whether August 11 shifts the PI price forecast outlook comes down to one thing. Buyers have to show up faster than the new coins do.

The post Pi Coin Defies Market Trend Before Key Deadline: Will the 10% Bounce Hold? appeared first on BeInCrypto.

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