Just today, a friend of mine that I’ve made aware of cryptocurrency in the past but I didn’t really think kept up closely, sent me a link to mine Pi on mobile for the Pi network. It was brought to his attention from another old mate and they’ve both been sharing these titled links that lead you to learn about how to mine Pi on mobile and also links to claim one Pi gifted by another user.
I thought it was neat that it is said to be lightweight enough to mine on mobile and not drain battery but wasn’t sure how that worked exactly besides that there is federation involved. I asked my friend and he said that you engage with the mobile app once a day to “prove you are human” where you apparently go into a “chat”. This reminded me of a discussion on this forum here about proof of unique human (I’m not up to speed on that thread per se but sounds aligned.
I asked my friend what he thought was so appealing and he said a couple different things. One was that you didn’t have to buy a crypto that was potentially unaffordable and it is so much easier to just earn it when it’s on your phone. Another thing he mentioned a few times that seemed to impress him was their apparent user growth over the course of a year or so since our other mate had first mentioned it to him. I asked how much it was “worth” in fiat and he said not much at all but that he thinks this stuff is the future and in time it will be worth more.
On top of this he said a coworker he’s close with was going to buy $10,000 worth of XLM (Stellar Lumens) and he told him the same thing he told me about buying something so expensive when you could just mine it. His coworker is well off so it’s a speculative move. Somewhat ironically, Pi is actually a fork of Stellar AFAIK. I did a quick read of the project.
A lot of the focus seems to be on mining on mobile and being accessible to the little guy, giving everyone an opportunity to be part of the cryptocurrency movement. Apparently there is supposed to be an app ecosystem but there was basically no information on it. I think I saw links to an SDK and they are now in beta I believe but nothing beyond that.
I do think a lot can be gleaned from this simple conversation though. It gives me the impression that we’re definitely on the right track and maybe what drives some regular everyday people not steeped in the space. Given the Pi folks have such a narrow focus and are so successful leads to some interesting points. They obviously have a honed message and make sharing links, Pi, and the mobile app super easy amongst mobile users. Lacking much more than that makes you wonder how much bigger it would be with something like what @JimCollinson has cooked up, as well as novel underlying network features. Like network storage, ID management, data sharing and permissions, third party apps, etc.
Even though Pi users have to interact with the app everyday, they are still willing to. I haven’t tried it personally so I’m not sure if it’s engaging or monotonous or creepy or what. I would assume being as passive as possible (like farming without having to engage or open an app continually) would be more attractive.
Maybe people like the engagement?
To expand on engagement (or make learning easier) things are usually “gamified”. I personally think gamification is easier said than done and I always feel like I’m partaking in a gimmick so not sure if that’s useful or relevant (might just be me).
Anyways, I hope this conversation I had with a person(s) totally outside of this sphere brings someone here some incite or value and I would be interested to hear if anyone here has heard of or participated in the Pi Network.
