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Is Pi Network (PI) Worth the Hype?
As Bitcoin’s blockchain moved away from GPU mining over a decade ago, and Ethereum fully moved to staking rewards, people have sought simpler and more energy-efficient alternatives that still involve crypto mining.
Hashrate marketplaces and mining providers have popped up, allowing people to pool and send excess processing power to these providers (e.g., NiceHash and CT Pool) to earn crypto in return.
However, there’s been lots of excitement about the recent mainnet release of a project claiming to simplify this process further.
Enter Pi Network.
What is it?
Established in March 2019, Pi Network promotes itself as the “first digital currency you can mine on your phone.”
Instead of a conventional mining algorithm such as Proof-of-Work (PoW) — used by Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin and Monero, to name a few — Pi Network uses an alternative derived from the Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP), a faster and much more energy-efficient option than PoW.
Despite years of development and testing, the project launched its Open Network mainnet (and PI, its native token) on February 20. I’m surprised Pi Network didn’t wait three more weeks till March 14.
