TL;DR
- The team behind the controversial project published a curious hint last week about an upcoming announcement, which many speculated could be a PI listing on Binance.
- That wasn’t the case. Instead, the team announced a $100 million initiative to invest in startups, but the native token’s price reacted with immediate price slumps after the recent hype-driven surge.
The Big Announcement
On May 8, the official X channel behind the project with over 4.3 million followers said a big ecosystem announcement was coming on May 14. Although it failed to provide any further details, the community started speculating with a few options, but a possible Binance listing was at the forefront since some members claimed that the exchange had experimented with backend PI deposits and withdrawals.
However, such a listing on the world’s largest crypto exchange would have to wait, as the actual statement revealed yesterday has nothing to do with any trading platforms. The team announced the launch of Pi Network Ventures, which is a $100 million initiative in PI and USD that will invest in “startups and businesses that advance the utility and real-adoption of PI.”
The comments below the post were split, as usual, with some praising it as a “huge” for the entire PI ecosystem, while others criticized that it is just “another announcement of what they plan to do, not what they have done or are doing.”
PI Dumps
The hype after the initial post from last week brought spectacular price gains for the project’s native token. It almost tripled within less than a week, going from $0.6 to over $1.7. However, this hype-driven rally came to a screeching halt at that point and has tumbled below $0.9 as of now.
This seems to be a classic ‘buy the rumor, sell the news’ event, in which the asset’s price surges ahead of the actual announcement but slumps after it. PI is down by 28% in the past 24 hours and has shed 50% of its value since its local peak registered just a few days ago.
