What is pi network?

Pi Network is a digital currency project that aims to keep cryptocurrency mining accessible, as the centralisation of first-generation currencies like Bitcoin (BTC) has put them beyond the reach of many everyday users.

These days, crypto mining is no longer accessible to the average person. Bitmain has a de facto monopoly over the supply of mining equipment, and just six mining pools dominate the majority of BTC mining activity, with the top three controlling 50%. Mining activity is often so concentrated that a localized power outage in China can precipitate a market crash.

As cryptocurrency becomes more institutionalized, mining Bitcoin and other major altcoins will only continue to centralize. However, making cryptocurrencies, and mining in particular, accessible to the masses is the aim of Pi, a blockchain initiative spearheaded by two founders with a Stanford Ph.D. in Computer Science and Social Sciences.

How to Mine Pi?

Users can participate in mining Pi by downloading the Pi Network app to their smartphone. Then, they can play up to four roles in the Pi consensus:

Pioneers are users of the mobile app who simply validate their presence each time they log in. Their contribution is in making Pi Network widely distributed. Currently, they can send and receive only Test-Pi on Pi Testnet through their Pi wallets.

Contributors are users who provide a list of pioneers they know and trust and maintain this list up to date. Ultimately, contributors are helping to develop the global trust graph needed for Pi’s consensus.

Ambassadors are users who introduce others to the Pi network.

Nodes are pioneers and contributors who also run the Pi node software on a desktop or laptop computer. Pi Nodes perform the heavy lifting of running the consensus algorithm of the blockchain and will use the trust graph aggregated from the trusted pioneers provided by mobile contributors.