Pi Network Protocol 27 upgrade brings DeFi to 14 million users

Pi Network activates Protocol 27 on September 15, adding smart contracts and an AMM DEX to 14 million migrated users who have never executed an on-chain swap.

The Pi Core Team has called Protocol 27 the "final planned" protocol change in the current development sequence, per project communications. All 421,000 mainnet node operators must upgrade to version 27.1 by the activation date or lose network connectivity.

The upgrade introduces smart-contract authentication, automated market maker liquidity pools, RPC server infrastructure, and a decentralized exchange that drew 242,000 testnet participants during the SLICE token exercise in June. PI trades near $0.095, holding above support after closing August at $0.0909 — more than 97 percent below the $2.99 all-time high reached when Open Network enabled external trading in February 2025.

The structural test is whether Protocol 27 converts Pi's migrated base into sustained on-chain activity. Roughly 6.5 million PI enter circulation daily from unlock schedules, with over 149 million tokens worth about $50.71 million scheduled to unlock in September alone. The network has never burned tokens, and Binance has not listed PI despite an 86.8 percent community vote in favor.

242,000 testnet users previewed the DEX

Before Protocol 27 goes live, the Pi Launchpad ran a full dress rehearsal. From June 11 to 28, the Core Team launched SLICE, a test token with no monetary value, on the testnet DEX. 242,000 Pioneers participated, committing 15.92 million Test-Pi toward token acquisition. The exercise tested the full Launchpad lifecycle: token issuance, AMM pool creation, liquidity bootstrapping, and real-time price discovery through swaps.

The Core Team revised the participation model after the first test round to add a fair access mechanism designed to prevent large participants from dominating token allocations. The hybrid order book and AMM design lets price discovery run through automated curves while still supporting limit orders — a structure aimed at users who have never used a DEX before.

The developer toolkit expanded at Pi2Day on June 28 with SoloHost, a framework for building local AI and distributed computing apps on Pi Desktop; Pi Sign-In, which lets users access third-party sites with Pi accounts; and PiVerify, an identity verification layer offering document checks, liveness detection, and AML screening. On September 5, the Core Team added local storage support, app-specific staking data access, and file and video sharing for developers.

Daily unlocks of 6.5 million PI test demand

Pi's supply structure remains the primary headwind. The circulating supply stands at 11.14 billion PI out of a total supply of 100 billion, with a fully diluted valuation near $9.46 billion. About 1.21 billion tokens are scheduled to unlock in 2026, releasing roughly 6.5 million PI per day into circulation.

PI trades on OKX, Bitget, Gate.io, MEXC, and Kraken. Binance has not listed the token despite the 86.8 percent favorable community vote in February 2025, with the exchange citing concerns over code transparency, independent security audits, and token concentration risk.

Protocol 27 follows Protocol 26, which upgraded contract safety, state management, interoperability, and cryptographic capabilities with a hard August 11 deadline for all node operators. The mandatory upgrade cadence — two protocol changes within 35 days — signals the Core Team's confidence in its operator base. Whether that confidence extends to developers building on the new infrastructure will determine if Pi's 14 million migrated users become DeFi participants or remain passive token holders. The September unlock schedule, combined with the DEX launch, gives the market a measurable test of whether utility-driven demand can absorb the daily supply pressure.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.