What Pioneers Must Know Before the March 1 Deadline

The Core Team said they continue with the updates, and the latest is right around the corner.

Despite the ongoing community backlash and questions regarding the migration state, the team behind Pi Network announced a new set of protocol upgrades that are currently in progress, and the deadline is March 1.

In the meantime, the native token has been quite volatile as of late, and we will review its most recent performance.

March 1 Deadline for Nodes

Similar to the updates outlined by the team in mid-February, the new protocol improvements will be rolled out gradually. In this second step, the deadline is set for the upcoming Sunday (March 1).

As with the February batch, all network nodes are required to complete this step before the deadline to “remain connected to the network.”

Protocol upgrades in progress (Step 2 – Deadline: March 1): The Pi Mainnet blockchain protocol continues to undergo a series of upgrades. All Mainnet nodes are required to complete this step before the deadline to remain connected to the network. Details here:…

— Pi Network (@PiCoreTeam) February 25, 2026

The explanatory post actually refers users to the Pi Nodes page on the project’s website. In it, the team reiterates previous statements about the importance of nodes within the Pi Network ecosystem, as they referred to them as the “fourth role.” Once again, they reminded that nodes have to run on laptops and desktops instead of mobile phones.

Pi Nodes, similar to other blockchains, are responsible for validating transactions on the distributed ledger and resolving challenges in maintaining a “distributed currency by having to come to a “consensus” on the order of new transactions that are being recorded.”

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In Pi Network’s case, the consensus algorithm is based on SCP, which allows nodes to form trusted groups, referred to as quorum slices, and only agree to transactions that are in complete alignment.

“Unlike most other crypto projects, the Pi Node will continue to follow the philosophy of user-centric design. Instead of requiring deep technical knowledge to set up a node, everyday people will be able to do that by installing a desktop application on their computers,” said the team.

PI Price Update

Pi Network’s native token went through some intense volatility in the past few weeks, which included a sporadic 35% daily surge a few weeks back that pushed it beyond $0.20. However, it was quickly rejected there and driven to under $0.16 during the market-wide crash earlier this week.

With BTC and the alts rebounding yesterday and today, PI followed suit and now sits inches away from $0.17. The upcoming unlocking schedule has some troubling news for next week, but the following several days should ease the pain, with around 5.5 million tokens to be released daily.

On March 7, though, that amount will skyrocket to almost 22 million, followed by 16.5 million a day later. These large unlocks could increase the immediate selling pressure.