Pi Network News and PI Price Update: May 24

Here are the latest developments and PI price moves.

It has been an eventful period for Pi Network and its broader ecosystem, even if one of the key protocol updates that had to be completed nearly ten days ago is still not fully implemented.

The native token crashed lately, but managed to halt the losses and remains at around $0.15.

Delayed New Update

Protocol version 22 came on May 1, which continued a long series of upgrades that began in February with 19.6. At the time, the Core Team behind the project highlighted the next scheduled update, version 23, which was supposed to be deployed by May 15. Once that date passed, the community started to wonder about the progress on the matter, with some claiming that once it goes live, it will be a ‘game-changer.’

The first official interaction from the team regarding v23 came on May 20. They noted that ‘most major Nodes’ had successfully upgraded, but the update remains in the works as it turned out to be “one of the most challenging” to date because it “involved multiple subsystem upgrades and optimizations that required internal data reprocessing.”

In the meantime, though, the Core Team outlined a different ecosystem update that promised to ‘change the equation for creators.’ They said vibe coders and creators can utilize Pi Network’s 60 million user base by ‘easily bringing their external AI-created apps to Pi’s real distribution network and utility ecosystem through Pi App Studio.’

With this new development that allowed even non-technical products to be built using platforms such as Codex and Replit, the team has doubled down on its narrative to close the gap between creating apps and turning them into actually usable and helpful tools.

Security Warning and Problem Solving

In addition, Pi Network’s official X account warned about a growing number of scammers impersonating the project’s co-founders, Nicolas Kokkalis and Dr. Chengdiao Fan. The post referred Pioneers to the verified accounts of the two co-founders, neither of which is very active on X, though.

Separately, the Core Team used Dr. Fan’s speech at the 2026 Consensus conference in Miami to bring more attention to one of the major issues within the crypto industry. They believe most tokens launched by different projects lack utility and substance as they are mostly used to raise capital without actually providing product innovation.

Instead, Pi Network claims it has gone in a different direction by treating its tokens as “tools that can support user acquisition, product engagement, and long-term utility.” Its latest product that enhanced this narrative is the Pi Launchpad, which it described as a tool for “ecosystem tokens and launch mechanisms that aim to help products acquire real users who engage, provide feedback, and use those tokens with actual product experiences.”

PI Price Update

Amid the ongoing developments, and perhaps driven by the delay in the protocol update, the project’s native token slumped hard in the past couple of weeks. It dumped from a local high of $0.175 (on May 13) to under $0.16 and then to a multi-month low of $0.145.

It dropped out of the top 50 alts by market cap and remains there even after it has recovered some ground and currently sits at $0.15. Even the bullish news from OKX about PI becoming available in the US market for the first time ever couldn’t sustain a more impressive rebound, and the token remains down 13% over the past two weeks.

Some popular members of Crypto X have weighed in on the asset’s recent performance, such as Kien Trinh. They explained that PI has split 20 times (in terms of price moves), which could be the “end of a beautiful love story.” Trinh added that Pi Network might have designed the perfect liquidity trap.