The Pi Network Paradox: Major Feature Launched, But PI Token Slides Again

The team behind the popular yet controversial project continues to try to improve the overall ecosystem with different initiatives announced frequently, but to no actual avail in terms of community approval and token price recovery.

In the latest example, they announced the first smart contract capability going live on Testnet, but the underlying asset continues to slide, while the comments below the post continue to refer to old issues they experience.

First Smart Contract Capabilities

Pi Network’s protocol updates began in late February when the network migrated to version 19.6. The following month and a half saw the introduction of version 19.9 and, perhaps most importantly, 20.2. The latter laid out the foundations for allowing smart contract features. V21 followed in early April, while V22 is scheduled to be completed by April 27.

In its latest announcement on X, the Core Team outlined the introduction of the aforementioned first smart contract capabilities directly on the project’s Testnet. According to them, this would foster “real, recurring, utility-driven use cases.”

They also promised that the blockchain will now be able to power e-commerce, streaming, online tools, and other similarly attractive niches.

Pi’s first smart contract capability is now live on Testnet: subscriptions!

This fosters real, recurring, utility-driven use cases.

Think e-commerce, streaming, online tools, and more, powered on-chain.

Read more in the Pi mining app. pic.twitter.com/tafdpuGAu1

— Pi Network (@PiCoreTeam) April 17, 2026

Despite this seemingly positive news, the majority of the comments below the post on X were still focused on another crucial topic: KYC. Many continue to experience issues when trying to migrate their tokens, even though they claim they have successfully completed all necessary steps. The team began second migrations last month and insists that hundreds of thousands of Pioneers have completed the transfer of their balances, but the community remains unconvinced.

PI Slides Again

After last month’s brief price pump following the Kraken listing, the underlying asset has been in a free-fall state for four weeks, falling from almost $0.30 to well below $0.20. It tried to stage a comeback earlier this week, but was halted at $0.185 today.

The subsequent rejection was quite painful, pushing the asset down to $0.173 as of press time. Its market cap is down to $1.760 billion on CoinGecko, which endangers its place in the top 50 alts by that metric despite the minor 7-day increase.