Pi Day 2026 marks the seventh official anniversary of Pi Network and reflects years of innovation and community building across the ecosystem.
From the beginning, Pi’s development has followed Pi’s long-term vision and strategy: to create an inclusive, utility-driven, and widely adopted cryptocurrency that is broadly accessible. As the network continues its progress in this direction, Pi Day serves as an opportunity to introduce new capabilities that strengthen the infrastructure of the ecosystem and expand how Pioneers and developers can contribute and participate.
Today, Pi is introducing a set of new features and products designed to expand utility creation and deepen engagement across the Pi ecosystem. These updates include the release of Pi Launchpad MVP version on Testnet following one design in recently introduced PiRC for Pioneers to learn and understand the new construct in action, progress in Node and Protocol Upgrades, Second migrations, and KYC Validator rewards, alongside new capabilities like Mainnet Pi payments in Pi App Studio to enhance utility. The new releases also include a new external connectivity that further widens the access to Pi, as well as a new utilities-focused challenge aimed at encouraging Pioneers to build and explore in the Pi ecosystem.
The following sections provide more details on each of these releases and how they contribute to expanding utility and participation across the Pi ecosystem.
Pi Launchpad on Testnet
Pi has been iterating on the design of ecosystem tokens on Mainnet that was released on Open Network’s first anniversary. Given the importance of the ecosystem token layer of the Pi ecosystem and that the Pi Launchpad is the primary means to get quality ecosystem tokens on Mainnet aligned with Pi’s vision, a Pi Request for Comment (PiRC) was published to solicit feedback from the community.
Now, the initial version of the Pi Launchpad that implements the mechanism in Design 1 in the PiRC has been released as a Pi App on the Testnet with a test token. Because the Launchpad introduces new concepts for many Pioneers and uses mechanisms that differ from typical token launches in Web3, it is being introduced on Testnet first so the community can become familiar with how the process works before the Mainnet launch. This is also an educational process for Pioneers to learn the new launchpad construct and many DeFi processes in action, in case they have not read the PiRC on GitHub. Data and feedback gathered during this period will help refine and improve the product before the Mainnet version is introduced. Pi Launchpad app can be accessed through Pi Browser.
As introduced during the Open Network anniversary, ecosystem tokens launched by the Pi Launchpad are designed for user acquisition and product utility, rather than serving primarily to raise capital. In this model, projects issue tokens as tools to acquire users for their applications and integrate those tokens directly into the product’s functionality—such as enabling access, payments, rewards, governance, etc. within the app. The proceeds of Pi from the launch of their tokens, instead of being taken by the issuing project, will go to a liquidity pool with the ecosystem token which bootstraps a healthy liquidity foundation from the start.
For projects, ecosystem tokens become a mechanism to attract real users, gather feedback, and validate and iterate their product. Traditionally without the Web3 tool of a token, user acquisition is typically expensive, and the cold-start problem is especially difficult for startups. The Pi ecosystem offers such a tool and support for businesses looking to expose their innovative products to a large global user base that includes both crypto-native users and mainstream audiences, many of whom are identity-verified, while inviting the users to join their journey of product iterations and evolution. By integrating tokens with real product experiences, projects not only create utility for their own token, but also can involve users earlier in their development process, test product attributes and functions, and validate that their products address real human needs, and grow their products more effectively.
From the Pioneer perspective, the launchpad provides transparent and meritocratic access to these tokens. Pioneers can choose to participate in different projects, access their tokens through launch mechanisms, and then use those tokens within the products themselves. This creates a feedback loop where users interact with the product, evaluate its utility, and hold projects accountable for delivering useful services. Unlike Web2 products, users do not just use products provided by a company, but hold and use tokens issued by the company early on.
Projects launching through the Pi Launchpad are expected to be product-first. In other words, the project should already have a working application so that the token has immediate utility at launch.
The Launchpad mechanism also supports the progress of decentralized exchange (DEX) activity within the Pi ecosystem. While the Pi DEX currently exists on Testnet, a healthy exchange environment depends on the availability of legitimate tokens with substantive utility and liquidity. By enabling product-first projects to launch ecosystem tokens and directing the Pi proceeds into liquidity pools with those tokens, the Pi Launchpad helps create a pipeline of tokens with these characteristics to be available on Pi DEX which is intended to help meet liquidity needs. This structure can help prevent early exploits of the DEX and AMM on the Mainnet where each might otherwise be flooded by meaningless and speculative tokens that do not provide meaningful utility. This approach allows for the creation of tokens in the ecosystem that align with the utility focus of the Pi ecosystem, and help to meet the goal of providing a safe platform for Pioneers to participate, while supporting more robust trading activity.
For full details on the original design thinking behind ecosystem tokens on Mainnet, read the Open Network anniversary blog, watch Pi Founder Chengdiao Fan’s video, and read and provide feedback on the detailed GitHub design proposal.
Now with the Pi Day product release, you can try the first version of the Pi Launchpad and learn how it works in action, in addition to reading and watching materials about the product. Note that the Launchpad product may iterate and change quickly in the testing phase, e.g. timeframes of different phases of a launch, availability of different steps, the information available, or calculations. Things may not stay the same between your visits—changes at this rate or inconsistency will not occur in the Mainnet version. The fast iterations and changes on the Testnet version are intended as part of the product’s testing so they inform the design to reach an optimized version on Mainnet
Note that the overall design of ecosystem tokens and the Pi Launchpad product are subject to change based on community feedback on the design, data gathered during the Testnet period, and feedback from projects that intend to issue such a utility token.
Node and Protocol Upgrades
All major Pi nodes have now been upgraded to version 20.2 and are supporting protocol 20. Pi will complete the upgrade of its Mainnet blockchain to protocol 20 in the coming week!
This is part of the initiative to align the Pi blockchain with the most up-to-date protocol version.
Protocol upgrades have phased in through consecutive versions:
- The Testnet1 blockchain was gradually upgraded in 2025, reaching v23 on September 18, 2025. This blockchain was upgraded first to test out the upgrade process.
- Mainnet and Testnet2 blockchains have been upgraded over the last month:
- v19.6 on February 15, 2026
- v19.9 on March 1, 2026
- v20.2 on March 13, 2026
On August 25, 2025, Pi also released a Linux CLI version of the Pi Node, so Linux Node operators can more easily manage docker containers and database migrations.
Protocol 20 provides the foundation to enable smart contract capabilities. Smart contracts are programmable logic executed on the blockchain that allow developers to build decentralized applications and automate transactions according to predefined conditions. This capability can support a wide range of blockchain-based functionality, such as issuing and managing non-fungible tokens (NFTs), enabling on-chain marketplace transactions, or powering application logic that automatically executes when certain conditions are met. With this protocol upgrade, the Pi blockchain now includes the technical foundation needed to support these types of programmable interactions within the ecosystem.
In addition to the prerequisite protocol upgrades that enable smart contract capabilities, the rollout of smart contracts will occur gradually, prioritizing categories that align with utility-based product innovation and operations. The specific types of smart contracts featured will depend heavily on the needs arising from the utility creation process.
For example, subscriptions are a typical business operation that occur in many real-world products. Therefore, categories of smart contracts that enable subscription functionality will be prioritized for the Pi blockchain. This prioritization reflects the goal of the Pi ecosystem: enabling real products with utility-based business models that solve real problems, rather than focusing solely on transaction-based or DeFi financial mechanics—Pi strategies discussed in the Open Network anniversary.
In addition to subscription-related contracts, escrow-type smart contracts, NFT-related contracts, and other utility-focused smart contracts will also be prioritized. Some of these contracts are currently undergoing external audits.
The process for introducing these smart contracts generally follows several stages: the smart contract is first reviewed by external auditing services, and then it is released to the community for review and comment. After this stage, the contracts will be deployed to Testnet for testing. Once testing is complete and the contracts perform as expected, they will then be deployed to Mainnet.
At the same time, other infrastructure components will also be updated to accommodate smart contract capabilities. For example, changes will be made to the Pi Wallet and the Pi SDK so that the broader ecosystem infrastructure can support and integrate smart contract functionality and smooth user experience.
Second Migrations and Referral Bonus Migrations
After much community anticipation, Pi Network is excited to announce that second migrations have started and will continue with a gradual rollout, opening the door for Pioneers to bring additional Pi to Mainnet and further participate in the ecosystem. This means that Pioneers who’ve already migrated their Pi balance the first time may now be eligible to migrate their second transferable Pi balance.
Whether it’s for first or second migrations, before becoming fully eligible, Pioneers must set up Pi Wallet two-factor authentication (2FA) through the Mainnet Checklist Step 5, an important step that strengthens wallet security. This may include adding a trusted email address to their accounts if such email address has not been set up for the account yet. 2FA is enforced before migrations because transfers on blockchain are irreversible and immutable.
As stated in the Mainnet migrations roadmap, second migrations will also include referral mining bonuses attributable to Referral Team members who fully passed KYC. Pioneers should therefore remind their Referral Teams to complete KYC so these bonuses can be migrated.
While second migrations roll out, first migrations for eligible Pioneers will continue as normal.
Once the network has successfully completed first and second migrations for the current queue of Pioneers, Pi will begin ongoing periodic migrations with frequency to be determined.
Pi Validator Rewards
Pi is releasing the first round of KYC validation rewards! Rewards will be distributed over the next ten or more days.
As a reminder of the original design for the validator rewards calculation when the KYC app was launched years ago, each Pioneer who migrates to the Mainnet pays 1 Pi into the pool of rewards to be distributed to KYC human validators. KYC validators’ work, as long as they contribute to the accuracy of the application processing, regardless of whether the final KYC result of the application is passing or rejection, should be paid by this pool because their work contributed to the network by correctly rejecting unqualified applications. However, those whose KYC applications were rejected do not migrate to the Mainnet, and they are thus unable to pay the 1 Pi.
Hence, the validator rewards pool of Pi is evenly distributed to all qualified work done within that period of time, by dividing the number of Pi in the pool by the total successful validations (Price per Validation). A KYC validator’s rewards then will be a product of this price and their successful validations. So the first round of the rewards is calculated by taking a snapshot of the pool and the total successful tasks at the same time before distribution (by March 5, 2026). Any new Pi entering the pool or new successful validations will be accounted for in the second and future deliveries.
Following the above method, at the snapshot, we have observed 16,568,774 Pi in the Validator Rewards Pool because there were 16,568,774 Pioneers migrated to Mainnet, 526,970,631 successful human validations done by 1,094,680 human validators.
Considering that the first round of validator rewards covers the period when the KYC validator network was still bootstrapping—many of the validations during that time were used to train human validators to become skillful and accurate in performing later validation work—and that this early phase also contributed to the formation of the KYC solution itself including establishment and scale of the human validator workforce, the Pi Foundation decided to sponsor 10 million Pi into the Pool supplementing the distribution of the first round of rewards.
So the final calculation of the Price per Validation in the first round is as follows:
(16,568,774 Pi +10 million Pi) / 526,970,631 successful validations = 0.0504179 Pi per validation
To put it in perspective, this Price per Validation is 21 times the current base mining rate.
In order to have the rewards delivered in this first round, validators must have completed at least 50 validations that reached majority agreement by March 5, 2026. Payment will automatically be transferred to validators’ Mainnet Pi Wallet, so validators should make sure they have set up a Mainnet wallet and confirmed it in the Mainnet Checklist.
The full breakdown of validator rewards and performance status can be found in the validation dashboard in the KYC app.
Each Pioneer’s KYC application has required an average of 20 validations before reaching finality. This is because of the privacy-preserving design of the KYC solution that pieces apart one application to multiple different validation tasks, each of which requires at least two validations from two different validators, including liveness checks, document verification, photo matching, data matching, name checks etc. For some applications that have special requests such as name updates, or require additional checks including multiple liveness checks or resubmissions, the number of validations can increase as well.
Reward rates can also fluctuate across different rounds of rewards distributions in different periods depending on factors such as the number of migrated Pioneers and the total pool of validated reviews during that period. Also, as AI processing in KYC increases and fewer validations will be done for the purpose of training the initial workforce, fewer human validations per application will be necessary. Therefore, fewer validations in aggregation will be dividing the reward pool, which can mathematically increase the Price per Validation in future rounds. Subsequent rounds of rewards may also incorporate additional or different criteria based on the validator’s consistency and accuracy.
Aside from the KYC validator rewards distribution, the data above demonstrates multiple great achievements of the Pi community. Not only have over 16.5 million people KYC’d and migrated to Mainnet through this KYC solution, but also the scale, consistency, and coordination from the large distributed human labor force of the Pi community has shown that it can lead to meaningful real-world results at global scale that require human judgement and input. This not only celebrates the effort of validators in the KYC process, but also shows the potential for Pi’s community to contribute to other types of human-necessary work for the network and future AI economy, such as many human-in-the-loop processes in AI and the human input necessary to train and improve AI capability.
Many AI projects talk about the importance of humans and human input in these systems, or have built platforms to enable human input, but face the big challenge—there are no or few humans actually participating. Pi solved the hard problem first—Pi already has a large, active network and has demonstrated the willingness and capability of contributing, in addition to its native global payment infrastructure through a blockchain capable of handling workforce payments at scale. For example, in just one app, 526,970,631 tasks were accomplished by 1,094,680 people whose compensation is paid in Pi through the Pi blockchain. The KYC validator workforce and accomplishments built the foundation for future human-in-the-loop products, whether on the platform level or through third-party apps to expand the ways humans can contribute to the creation and refinement of AI and future economy. More details on these broader implications will be shared in a later announcement.
Pi App Studio Apps Enabled on Mainnet
Pi App Studio now supports Mainnet apps and in-app payments integration on the Mainnet blockchain! This means select App Studio apps can transition from Testnet to Mainnet if they qualify for the criteria of Mainnet apps, and then integrate live Pi transactions directly into the user experience.
Four apps have been invited to transition to Mainnet and integrate live Pi payments. Criteria for eligibility will be released at a later date, but largely follows Pi’s Mainnet Ecosystem Interface standards including app quality, completeness of app functionalities, evaluation of utility, and compliance with Pi ecosystem policies and guidelines.
This milestone marks an important shift for Pi App Studio from experimentation and testing to sustainable utility. One of Pi’s long term goals is to bring meaningful production on-chain, particularly at the AI application layer. Enabling Mainnet transitions inside the App Studio means that these AI-assisted apps created by non-technical creators are no longer limited to being just testing prototypes—they can participate in actual on-chain activity.
This capability is uniquely powerful on Pi because of the network’s large base of real participants. Creators building apps in App Studio can reach an existing ecosystem of over 17.7 million KYC verified Pioneers on Mainnet who can pay in real Pi transacted on the blockchain, and many more millions of Pioneers through the Pi mobile platform. This creates a fundamentally different environment from many other platforms, where creators often struggle to find distribution or an active user base.
Therefore, Pi App Studio provides the foundation for sustainable business models for creators. Creators can earn real Pi when their apps deliver genuine utility and useful services to Pioneers, incentivizing the development of higher-quality, more useful, and more engaging applications. Over time, this dynamic strengthens the ecosystem’s utility layer, allowing applications to persist, improve, and scale because they generate real benefits for both their users and their creators.
Persistent Payment Integrations Now Enabled
As part of this release, App Studio creators on Testnet and Mainnet can integrate payment interactions in newly created apps that apply persistently across multiple active sessions, an improvement on top of previous version. Previously, payment interactions applied only within a single active session while the app was in use.
Persistent payment interactions allow purchases or unlocks to remain active beyond a single session and continue to apply when a user returns to the app later. For example, a user could purchase access to a premium feature, unlock additional capabilities, or obtain a lasting upgrade that remains available across future uses of the app. This enables creators to design more durable in-app experiences that extend beyond one-time interactions.
Kraken Listing
Third-party services that pass Pi’s KYB verification may integrate with Pi Network to facilitate connections with external systems and the broader crypto ecosystem. The centralized exchange Kraken has integrated support for Pi.
Pi Day 2026 Utility Challenge
To celebrate Pi Day 2026 and the many new capabilities launching across the ecosystem, Pi is introducing a utilities-focused challenge for Pioneers.
The challenge is a checklist of simple activities that guide Pioneers through different parts of the ecosystem. Each task is connected to Pi utilities or newly released features—such as exploring apps, learning about new products, or interacting with tools available in the network. By completing these activities, Pioneers can discover how different parts of the ecosystem work together while gaining hands-on experience with the latest developments.
Once all tasks in the checklist are completed, Pioneers will receive a Pi Day badge visible on Pi Chats and Pi Social Profiles.
This challenge is designed to make exploring the Pi ecosystem more interactive while highlighting the expanding set of utilities available to the community.
Pi Open Network Anniversary Raffle Ending
The Open Network Anniversary celebratory Pi merchandise raffle that began with the community badge initiative will conclude at 11:59 PM PST on March 14. Pioneers who claimed eligible badges and submitted their social media posts through the in-app flow before the deadline will be entered into the raffle. A total of 150 winners will be randomly selected and contacted only through the official [email protected] email address with further instructions regarding merchandise fulfillment.
Pioneers should pay attention to the sender email address when receiving emails about the raffle, and review the Pi Safety Center for guidance on avoiding scams.
Looking Forward
These Pi Day releases represent further milestones in the continued evolution of the Pi ecosystem. By expanding infrastructure, enabling new forms of participation, and supporting the creation of real utilities, these updates strengthen the ecosystem as a whole.
As more Pioneers migrate to Mainnet, build applications, and engage with utilities, the network continues to support Pi’s widely used, utility-driven cryptocurrency ecosystem.
Happy Pi Day 2026, Pioneers!
