Invest carefully—investing involves risk. This post allows everyone to share their own refer.

About Pi

In 2020, a lot of people were recommending Pi, this virtual currency. Pi Network was created by a team of Stanford PhDs in the United States. Its founder reportedly received Facebook’s innovation fund award and specializes in human-computer connectivity and blockchain application design. Pi builds its consensus mechanism on the Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP) and Federated Byzantine Agreement (FBA), making it more lightweight and not resource-intensive. Pi Network aims to create a low-barrier, low-cost cryptocurrency network that anyone can join. As long as you download the official app to your phone, you can start mining. The barrier really is low: if you have internet access and the app, you can mine from anywhere in the world.

What Pi Network is really after is a huge user base (it already has one of the largest user bases among virtual currencies). Of course, any potential value would likely be diluted, and the entire promotion process looks a lot like MLM. There’s definitely a lot of hype.

According to some “industry experts,” the value of Pi could reach ¥1300/π.

Note: the ¥ here may be Japanese yen?

Register for Pi

Signing up for Pi is easy. You can register from anywhere in the world, and the app supports multiple languages, including Chinese. New users get 1π for signing up. Here’s its Chinese promotional pitch:

We’re giving you 1π! Pi is a new digital currency developed by Stanford PhDs and has more than 10 million members worldwide. Please click this link https://minepi.com/uscc101 to install the app, and use my username (uscc101) as the invitation code to receive your Pi.

Note: Pi really emphasizes that it comes from a Stanford PhD team; using that kind of slogan feels a bit low.

Pi specifically reminds users that cash out may be needed in the future, so it recommends using your real name. One nice thing is that Pi lets you change your name once, which again makes the whole thing feel pretty loose.

How to Earn Pi

You need to log in to the app once per day, and then it will mine automatically. In the Pi app, you can see three levels:

  • Pioneer: 0.10 π/hr
  • Contributor: tied to usage cycles and your Security Circle
You have not yet built your Security Circle! Becoming a Contributor and building your Security Circle lets you earn Pi at a higher rate. Changes to your Security Circle will take effect in the next earning cycle. 0.00 Security Circle members 0.00 π/hr You are not currently a Contributor. You need to complete three earning cycles to unlock this role.
  • Ambassador: tied to the number of people you invite
You have invited 0 members. Your earning team has 1 member. Details...

1 online
1 × 25% × 0.10 π/hr = 0.02 π/hr
0 offline
0.00 π/hr


Basically, you can just leave the app running in the background and check in occasionally (supposedly, in theory, you log in once every 24h)... Anyway, it’s pretty lightweight. You can see the earning rate right on the app homepage in green text to the right of the logo:

Should You Participate?

The following is just the author’s personal opinion:

  • Investing is risky, but mining Pi really is easy and has almost no barrier to entry, especially for US Credit Card 101 readers who have a lot of phones for rewards gaming.
  • As for whether the Pi app might collect your private data or track your user habits, you can control the app permissions yourself. If you’re worried, just don’t use it on your primary phone.
  • Pi launched in 2020, and a lot of people are still participating. If you have the time, you can sign up casually. If Pi gets a social-media hype push before it ever gets listed—like the “Dogecoin and Musk” story—it might rise a bit.
  • In the end, the point is participation—well, maybe “promotion.” Once you sign up, just open the app whenever you remember and see how much more π you’ve “mined.”

The author has plenty of rewards-game phones anyway, so might as well install it on each one and experience this mass-participation bubble firsthand.

Register for Pi

Signing up for Pi is easy. You can register from anywhere and get 1π for signing up: