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Historically, Pi accounts relied on phone numbers—not emails—as unique identifiers. While convenient at first, this approach created challenges, as SMS (text message via phone numbers) verification was proven to be both unreliable and costly. Due to the global distributed nature of the Pi community, SMS communications between Pioneers and servers have not always worked due to different geographic limitations in telecommunication regulations, carrier policies, individuals’ service subscriptions and costs, and more. 

In light of these challenges, and that the network is in a phase with more reliable authenticity measures such as KYC and liveness checks, it is time to shift from primarily or solely relying on phone numbers to using email-based two-factor authentication (2FA) verification, with the goal of eventually supporting advanced authentication methods like passkeys and biometrics. The email-based 2FA verification not only addresses the above challenges, but also improves security because of the two-factor aspect. 

To get there, every user will first need to establish a trusted email on file. However, some users never added an email to their accounts, or might have entered incorrect ones, lost access to their past emails, or shared emails with family members’ Pi accounts. 

Given that adding an email to a Pi account is not done at the time of account creation and this is a major shift in account management and security, Pi had to check—through additional analytics and analysis before allowing users to migrate—how users added their trusted emails, how they verified their email addresses, how they completed the 2FA, etc., to ensure the integrity of these processes and the security of user accounts. In some cases, further actions, such as a liveness check or additional SMS verification, are needed. This required a temporary pause in migrations until such system level checks were made. 

The good news is that migrations have now resumed and will gradually expand as more email-based 2FAs and system-level checks complete. Pi Network is committed to a smooth and secure transition, and your patience is appreciated as account security is strengthened for everyone.

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