Pi Coin rose 8% to $0.0870 and trended on CoinGecko as market cap reached about $957 million with roughly $8.6 million in 24-hour trading volume, yet the token is still 79% below its price a year ago and down 25% over the past month. Node operators must install Protocol v26 by August 11 to avoid being cut off — an upgrade that improves smart contract security, data storage and cross-chain functionality ahead of Protocol v27 — but about 1.71 billion PI are due to unlock over the next year, posing heavy sell pressure and weighing on adoption and token performance.

Bearish

Predictions Markets

See what traders are focused on

View analytics →

In Brief

Pi Coin rose 8% to $0.0870 while most trending coins fell.
Pi Network nodes must install Protocol v26 by August 11 or get cut off.
PI still trades 79% below where it sat a year ago.

Pi Coin (PI) rose 8% on Saturday to $0.0870. The move pushed the token onto CoinGecko’s trending list, days before a hard deadline for Pi Network.

Nodes are the computers that check Pi transactions. The people who run them have until August 11 to install an update. Nodes that miss it get cut off.

CoinGecko ranked PI second on its trending board on Saturday. Most other coins on that list were falling. Pi Coin was one of the few going up.

Pi Network AmongTrending List. Source: Coingecko

Pi Network Among Trending Coins. Source: Coingecko

The bigger picture is less kind. While PI has gained 7% over the past week, it is still down 25% over the past month. The token is worth about $957 million in total, making it the 67th largest coin.

Pi Network (PI) Price Performance. Source: BeInCrypto

Trading stayed thin. Pi Network market data shows roughly $8.6 million changed hands in 24 hours.

Trending today are $PONS, $PI, and $TAO 🔥Are you watching any of these? pic.twitter.com/OgCSHUv9gT
— CoinGecko (@coingecko) August 1, 2026

What the August 11 Deadline Means

Protocol v26 is the latest step in a long chain of updates that started at version 19. Pi says it makes smart contracts safer. It also improves how the network stores data and talks to other blockchains.

“Protocol 26 is a major milestone ahead of the final planned upgrade, Protocol 27. With 8 successful upgrades completed over the past few months, these final two upgrades will bring the network up to date with the latest protocol features, improvements, and functionality,” the team noted.

Only node operators need to act. People who mine Pi on their phones do not. Pi lists every step on its node page.

Pi nodes agree on transactions in small trusted groups, a design borrowed from Stellar. The July 22 Protocol v25 rollout added the cryptography that privacy apps need.

Why Pi Coin Rallies Keep Fading

Traders have seen this before. PI jumped 24% ahead of the July 22 update. It handed the gain back once the day arrived. The Protocol 24 mainnet upgrade in June ended the same way.

Zoom out and it looks worse. PI hit a record low of $0.0710 on July 14. It now sits 79% below where it traded a year ago.

New supply is the main drag. PiScan data cited last month showed about 1.71 billion PI unlocking over the next year. That is a heavy load for a market trading under $10 million a day.

Pi Crypto Unlock Statistics by Month. Source: PiScan.io

Protocol v27 is the last planned update. Whether August 11 shifts the PI price forecast outlook comes down to one thing. Buyers have to show up faster than the new coins do.

Read the article at BeInCrypto