Brother Maji’s dilemma of “selling monkeys to cover positions”: From NFT whale to high-leverage gambler, how Huang Licheng lost US$80 million | Latest news from Brother Maji

Original author：AI悟空说

Original source：https://www.youtube.com/embed/iiMp3ec_MXw

In June 2026, Pi Network is in a delicate stage where ecological construction acceleration and token price weakness coexist. Since the beginning of the year, Pi App Studio has continuously launched major updates such as code-free payment integration, ad-supported free deployment, and AI application generation, allowing non-technical personnel and independent developers to use external AI tools to quickly transform ideas into Pi ecological applications. Its strategic positioning is to become the distribution layer of AI-generated products, relying on more than 60 million active pioneer users and 18 million KYC verified users as a potential customer base. Because Pi has registered an MSB compliance license, launched spot trading on regulated exchanges such as Kraken and OKX, and has a mature ecology of small and medium-sized enterprises and freelancers, the U.S. market is regarded by the community as the preferred battlefield for ecological implementation. Local merchant payments, cross-border freelance settlement, and AI digital services are the most discussed areas. However, Pi is still in the closed mainnet stage, and tokens cannot be freely transferred to external exchanges, which seriously restricts the integrity of the in-application economic model and the actual motivation of merchants to accept Pi payments. Although the core team continues to promote the protocol upgrade, upgrading from V23 to V25 within 6 months, and requiring all nodes to migrate within a time limit, there is no specific date for the three conditions required to open the main network - KYC completion rate, ecological maturity, and node stability - to be met. In terms of price, Pi reported a range of US$0.13 to US$0.135 on June 22. It hit a record low of US$0.1187 at the beginning of the month. It fell by approximately 27% during the year and has fallen by more than 95% from the high of US$2.98 when the mainnet was launched. The selling pressure brought about by the unlocking of approximately 160 million tokens in June is one of the recent downward factors. In terms of regulation, the U.S. Digital Asset Market Clarity Act has entered the Senate agenda, and Pi's compliance design is aligned with it. However, the SEC's identification of securities attributes and data privacy regulations still pose uncertainties. The core of ecological competition lies in whether Pi's user base advantage can be transformed into actual choices for developers in the face of many public chains. However, the stability issues caused by the closed main network, smart contracts that are still under audit, and frequent upgrades are obvious shortcomings. There are currently more than 150 applications running on the Pi browser, and the hackathon received tens of thousands of entries, but there are still only a few products that are actually active and commercially sustainable. In the second half of 2026, with the advancement of V26.0 and the official launch of smart contracts, Pi Network will usher in a critical testing period. The market focus will shift from "ecological construction narrative" to "which applications truly create real demand and continuous transactions." This determines whether Pi can transform from a speculative tool into a network with actual payment media functions.