Bybit CEO Ben Zhou Rejects Listing of Controversial Pi Network Token
On Thursday, Ben Zhou, the CEO of Bybit, announced that his cryptocurrency exchange would not be listing the newly released Pi Network’s PI token. This decision comes in light of a warning issued by Chinese authorities in 2023, which labeled the project a scam targeting vulnerable elderly individuals. The alleged scheme reportedly involved the unauthorized collection of personal information, leading to significant financial losses in pensions.
Zhou took to X (formerly Twitter) to express his concerns, stating, “There are multiple other reports out there questioning the project’s legitimacy. Yes, I still think you are a scam, and no, Bybit will not list scam.” The tweet stirred conversations in the cryptocurrency community, highlighting ongoing skepticism about the Pi Network.
The Pi Network, which recently launched its token along with its mainnet, did not respond to CoinDesk’s request for comments. Users who had been “mining” tokens—essentially clicking a button on their mobile devices once a day—finally gained the ability to transfer and sell their tokens. However, the launch has not been without its troubles for Zhou, who found himself amidst a separate crisis on Friday when Bybit suffered a hack attributed to North Korea’s Lazarus Group, resulting in a staggering loss of $1.5 billion.
Upon its debut on OKX, the PI token was initially priced at $0.67, surged to a high of $2, but subsequently plummeted by 65%, settling around $0.69. One of the primary issues that raised eyebrows was a marketing strategy that incentivized users to recruit new members. Each time a user successfully brought someone on board using their referral code, their “mining” rewards were enhanced, drawing comparisons to the notorious Ponzi scheme, Bitconnect, from 2017.
One X user, known as CryptoBeast, asserted, “Pi Network is the biggest ponzi [scheme]”, sharing this sentiment with their 656K followers. Furthermore, the project offers participants the option to lock their tokens for periods of up to three years in exchange for promised increased rewards. This tactic echoes strategies used in the Hex project, whose founder, Richard Schueler—better known as Richard Heart—is currently a fugitive sought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on multiple charges, including investor fraud.
As it stands, the PI token boasts a market capitalization of $4.18 billion, based on a circulating supply of $6.33 billion. However, its inflationary model suggests a maximum supply of 100 billion tokens, leading to a fully diluted valuation (FDV) of an astonishing $67 billion, should it maintain its current price. At launch, the FDV skyrocketed to as high as $200 billion, nearly double that of Solana.
Despite the controversies surrounding the project, some exchanges remain unfazed. OKX, Bitget, and Gate have collectively generated an impressive $620 million in trading volume for PI trading pairs, as reported by CoinMarketCap.
