Key Insights:
Justin Bons, the founder of Cyber Capital calls Pi a scam, a MLM and against principles of decentralization.
Bons calls its tokenomics extremely unclear with no information on internal holdings.
Bybit CEO too called Pi Network a scam, hours before his exchange was hacked.
Despite Pi being the 23rd largest cryptocurrency it was refused a Binance listing.
Justin Bons, the founder and CIO of Cyber Capital has launched criticism calling the Pi Network a scam. The top crypto executive joined Bybit CEO Ben Zhou in calling out Pi Network, which both of them believe to be a scam and against the core principles of decentralization.
Justin showed that the Pi Network claimed to be decentralized but in reality was extremely centralized asking for KYC even for simple transfer of funds.
He also accused Pi Network of delivering a mainnet five years behind schedule. The Pi Network was conceptualized by two Stanford PhDs Dr. Nicolas Kokkalis and Dr. Chengdiao Fan, who launched it in March 2019 but failed to present a mainnet more than five years after its launch. The mainnet was eventually launched on 20 Feb 2025.
Even after the mainnet launch Pi users faced trouble in moving their funds which according to the Pi Network was only possible when the user does their KYC. Additionally, Pi Network also demanded the KYC completion of your circle, without which users were not allowed to move their funds. This was also raised by Bons who called it a Multi-Level-Marketing scheme, a type of Pyramid Scheme.
Bons further added that Pi Network's core technology was copied from that of Stellar Network, which is another permissioned blockchain.
Bons also objects the level of insider control on tokenomics. Pi Network has zero disclosure on how much token supply insider control. He also objects to the locking-in mechanism for tokens where users must lock-in funds for several years for an marginal increase in mining rate.
Finally, Bons calls it an embarrasment that Pi Coin was able to make it to the Top 20 cryptos by market cap. At press time Pi was the 23rd largest crypto by market cap, with a capitalization of $6 billion. The token traded at a price of $0.88 at press time.
Pi Token
CoinMarketCap
Bybit CEO was one of the first to share his views on Pi Network, calling it the largest Pyramid Scheme. He said his exchange would not list Pi Network, something which Binance too followed.
Beside what Justin Bons added, Pi had a very skewed tokenomics with only 6.7% of its token supply (100 billion) in circulation.
Pi Tokenomics Shows Only 6.7% Tokens in Circulation
CoinMarketCap
Token supply is one of the major ways to gauge the value of your token in the future. If the uncirculated supply is high, then despite all positive reasons, the token value would not rise high. This is because scheduled and unscheduled token unlocks will increase the supply, thereby decreasing the value of all tokens that were already in circulation.
One great example is Worldcoin, which was essentially abandoned by its holders for skewed tokenomics. Ethereum too faces low investor confidence because of its infinite token supply.
On the other hand, Bitcoin is liked due to its fixed supply of 21 million BTC out of which 19.83 million is already in supply.
Disclaimer: Voice of Crypto aims to deliver accurate and up-to-date information but will not be responsible for any missing facts or inaccurate information. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile financial assets, so research and make your own financial decisions.