Pi Network's AI ambitions face a triple dilemma: can financing sustain its growth?

Question

Recently, the Pi Network has been quite active, but the market reaction seems a bit lukewarm. Let's see what happened:

The money has come in, but problems have also arisen.

Pi Network Ventures invested $100 million in the robotics company OpenMind (officially announced on November 3), using 350,000 nodes to run AI models, allowing miners to monetize their computing power. Sounds appealing—earning tokens with idle computing power and building some “productive AI energy” model.

At the same time, Pi is promoting ISO 20022 compliance (global banking payment protocol), aiming to benchmark against Stellar and Ripple to attract institutional participation. With 70 million active users and 25 million completing KYC, this number can indeed support some expectations.

But the reality is heart-wrenching

Developers are fleeing. The first place project of the Hackathon, WorkforcePool (a decentralized freelance platform), has been acquired. On the surface, it looks like an exit, but in essence, the ecosystem is bleeding. The reason is very straightforward: domain fees, server costs, and customer acquisition costs have skyrocketed, and new developers see no prospects and are leaving.

Open Mainnet is still being delayed. The key milestone of complete decentralization has been postponed time and again, and the community is already fed up with the complaints.

The price looks a bit eye-catching.

App downloads have surpassed 100 million (more than Coinbase and OKX), sounds impressive
But the PI token hovers around $0.20-$0.22, briefly spiking to $0.30 in October before softening.
On-chain data shows an increase in exchange tokens → Selling pressure is intensifying.

Key Issues: No regulatory certainty, no real application scenarios implemented, price increases rely entirely on speculation.

Is there still a turning point?

V23 mainnet upgrade + Pi DEX launch, MamboChain payment solution in Kenya tests emerging markets. The ecosystem is still growing, just at a slower pace.

Conclusion: The story of Pi has upgraded from “mobile mining dream” to “AI infrastructure,” which sounds impressive. However, without stabilizing developers, fulfilling key commitments, and finding a killer application, this $100 million financing feels more like a life support injection rather than a catalyst. Whether the price can truly rise depends on whether there are substantial developments next year.