Pi Network is a project that aims to develop the first digital cryptocurrency that can be mined on a smartphone.
It's an attempt to build an eco-friendly decentralized open-source blockchain. Dr. Nicolas Kokkalis, Dr. Chengdiao Fan, and Vincent McPhillip, all Stanford University grads, designed it.
Dr. Nicolas Kokkalis, the head of technology, previously co-founded Gameyola, a social networking monetization and distribution platform for casual Flash games, and is the instructor of Stanford University's first decentralized applications class, which combines distributed systems and human-computer interaction to bring cryptocurrency to the masses.
Vincent McPhillip, the community's leader, was also a co-founder of The Stanford Blockchain Collective, a cross-disciplinary student organization with members from the engineering, business, and law departments.
Unlike bitcoin, which uses a proof-of-work consensus mechanism, Pi is based on the Stellar Consensus Protocol. It is generated by Pi Network miners as a reward for mobile activities conducted to secure the blockchain (SCP).
The Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP) requires several nodes to vote on transaction validity, an activity that requires less computing power than bitcoin's proof-of-work consensus protocol, which relies on nodes that consume a lot of electricity and, as a result, has negative environmental consequences due to carbon emissions from bitcoin mining.
Pi Network had over 500,000 installs in October 2019, just seven months after its introduction, with active users in 180 countries.
Pi Network bills itself as the first and only network where you may earn the digital asset Pi.
Pi seeks to enable ordinary people from all walks of life to contribute to the cryptocurrency's security and community's prosperity. This meritocratic philosophy, along with Pi's inclusion, the team believes, is setting it to become the world's most commonly used cryptocurrency.
