Pi miners anxiously await monetization

The system is making steady progress towards transiting to launch by around Pi2 Day - June 28, the development team announced on the Pi Network app last Tuesday.

Since Monday night, Pi miners in Vietnam have started to wait for the transition. Many claimed to be business owners and said they will accept the token as a payment method as soon as the coin can be exchanged.

Pi and other cryptocurrencies are not legal tender in Vietnam, Dao Minh Tu, the deputy governor of the State Bank of Vietnam, has said.

Huynh Tan of HCMC said he has signed in the app to earn rewards every day for the last three years.

"I have joined the project since its beta stage. Now it is about to enter the mainnet stage, so I hope to be able to exchange Pi for money or something."

He said prices of thousands dollars is "very unlikely" as there are 100 billion tokens, but the ‘consensus price’ may be of any number.

A poll on a Pi group found 75 percent of nearly 3,400 users believing in a ‘consensus price’ of US$6,700.

"What will you buy first once each Pi token is worth thousands of dollars?", a member asked on a Pi group with 100,000 members and attracted over 300 comments.

Many said they intended to buy a house, a car or give away the money after selling the token.

But investors will have to wait until developers allow them to transfer the token.

Last year, Pi announced it had entered mainnet, but that will be split into two phases: closed and open network -- the former allows user-to-user transactions, and the latter allows exchanging with other cryptocurrencies.

Doubts

Meanwhile, many are skeptical about the developer’s pledges.

"There is no certainty in the statement, just a general announcement of mainnet launch around the Pi2 Day. They did the same thing last year, but there has yet been any development," Anh Minh, a Pi miner said.

Pi Network also made no announcement on its social media accounts on June 28 -- an unusual move as most crypto projects constantly provide users new information during key phases.

Over the last six months, the project has reduced mining rate, required users to lock up part of their token, and started the KYC (know-your-customer) process.

Some users were allowed to exchange the token internally, but only as a demo.

Up to date, the token cannot be exchanged with other cryptocurrencies, and mostly remain worthless.