1. Pi Network project background and Southeast Asian market positioning
Pi Network is a mobile mining public chain project initiated by the Stanford University team, including Nicolas Kokkalis, in 2019, aiming to achieve the popularization of cryptocurrency through low-threshold mining. As of February 2025, Southeast Asian users account for over 60%, mainly distributed in Vietnam (12%), the Philippines (9%), and Indonesia (7%). The region has a high smartphone penetration rate (93% of users use Android devices costing less than $300), and a strong acceptance of emerging financial tools.
Source:Pi Network
2. Pi Network Southeast Asia Compliance Path
Regulatory framework and policy adaptability
Southeast Asian countries have significantly different attitudes towards cryptocurrency regulation:
Pi Network’s compliance strategy in Southeast Asia exhibits differentiated adaptive features:
- Regulatory arbitrage choice: prioritize entry into Singapore and the Philippines (sandbox mechanism) with friendly policies, and temporarily postpone the deployment of payment functionality in Vietnam;
- KYC Tiered Management: Develop tax calculation plugin to comply with Thailand’s 7% VAT requirement; Only enable non-trading wallet functionality for Vietnamese users;
- Liquidity control: Restrict high-risk area leverage trading through compliant exchanges (e.g., the highest leverage ratio in the Philippines is 20x).
Existing Contradictions:
- Vietnam’s off-exchange market premium rate has reached 27%, giving rise to cross-border arbitrage risks;
- The Philippine BSP requires project parties to submit quarterly audit reports, increasing compliance costs.
A notificaiton from Pi Network on a smartphone. Photo by VnExpress/Bao Lam
3. Pi Network Southeast Asian Market Impact and Risk Analysis
Economic penetration and social acceptance
- Payment scenario: Vietnam Saigon Co.op Group launched the “0.5 USD lock-in price” promotion, and the PI offline transaction volume increased by 40% against the trend.
- User behavior: On average, each user invites 7 layers of social relationships, forming a potential coverage network of over 250 million.
Compliance Risks and Challenges
- Token distribution controversy: Early mining users hold 63% of the circulation, and significant selling pressure is evident after the mainnet goes live.
- Regulatory Conflict: Several Southeast Asian countries define PI as “grey assets”, and if identified as securities tokens, they may face delisting from exchanges.
Southeast Asian Regulatory Warning
- Malaysia: On February 18, 2025, the Securities Commission (SC) warned Pi Network for operating digital assets without a license and requested the suspension of local promotions.
- Philippines: The Central Bank of China (BSP) placed PI Coin on a “watch list”, questioning its user growth model for alleged pyramid schemes.
Project party should have a strategy
- Decentralization of Nodes: Planned to open community node elections in Q2 2025, with priority invitations to historical contributors.
- Compliance cooperation: Pilot PI Coin cross-border remittance with Singapore payment platform StraitsX, handling fee 0.1%.
4. PI Coin Market Performance and Risk Warning
Gate.com trading data
Source:Gate.com spot trading
Price fluctuations attributed
- Sell-off concentration: In the early stage, miners held more than 60% of the coins, and the daily sell-off reached 280 million coins after the mainnet launch.
- Ecological vacuum: Currently, only 80 DApps are online, lacking core scene support such as payment, DeFi, etc.
Summary
The compliance process of Pi Network in Southeast Asia reflects the dual attitude of emerging markets towards cryptocurrency: on the one hand, the low-threshold mining and social fission model quickly penetrate grassroots users; on the other hand, the lag in regulation and the centralized characteristics of the token economy model sow systemic risks.
From the data, the drastic fluctuations after PI’s listing on Gate.com reflect the market’s doubts about the project’s sustainability, while offline payment experiments in Vietnam and other places prove its practical application potential. In the long run, PI needs to solve two major problems:
- Compliance framework: collaborate with regulatory agencies in various countries to clarify the attributes of tokens and tax standards;
- Ecological construction: Accelerate the implementation of DApps and avoid becoming a “mining-selling” single-cycle tool.
If PI can balance community governance and compliance requirements, it may become the foundation of Web3 payments infrastructure in Southeast Asia; otherwise, it may be marginalized due to regulatory crackdowns and liquidity depletion.
