Bybit CEO Ben Zhou Labels Pi Network a Scam, Citing Official Police Warning

Bybit CEO Ben Zhou mentioned Thursday that his trade won’t checklist the Pi Network’s PI token, which was controversially launched on Thursday, citing a Chinese police warning from 2023 that alleged the challenge was a rip-off focusing on aged individuals, leaking their private data and resulting in the lack of their pensions.

“There are multiple other reports out there questioning the project legitimacy,” Zhou posted on X. “Yes, I still think you are a scam, and no, Bybit will not list scam.”

The Pi Network did not reply to CoinDesk’s request for feedback.

The token went stay alongside the challenge’s mainnet launch on Thursday. Users who “mined” tokens by clicking their smartphone screens as soon as a day had been lastly in a position to switch and promote tokens.

Zhou, nonetheless, discovered himself in the course of a separate situation on Friday, together with his trade Bybit, which was hacked by North Korea’s Lazarus Group for $1.5 billion.

The PI token debuted on OKX at $0.67, rose as excessive as $2 after which slumped 65% and is at the moment round $0.69.

One situation that raised issues was a advertising tactic that rewarded customers who recruited different customers. Each time a consumer persuaded another person to enroll utilizing their code, the primary particular person’s “mining” rewards had been elevated. The thought had some drawing comparisons to the 2017 Ponzi scheme, Bitconnect.

“Pi Network is the largest ponzi [scheme],” X consumer CryptoBeast alleged, posting to their 656K followers.

The challenge additionally provides customers the choice of locking their tokens for so long as three years. In return, they’re promised elevated rewards. The identical method was on the coronary heart of the Hex challenge, whose founder, Richard Schueler, identified on-line as Richard Heart, is a fugitive sought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for, amongst different issues, defrauding his buyers.

The token has a market cap of $4.18 billion based mostly on a circulating provide of $6.33 billion. However, its inflationary nature means the utmost provide is 100 billion, giving a absolutely diluted worth (FDV) at a staggering $67 billion, assuming it holds the present value. At launch, FDV rose as excessive as $200 billion, virtually double that of Solana.

Some exchanges have been undeterred by the issues raised. OKX, Bitget and Gate have racked up a whole of $620 million in buying and selling quantity for PI buying and selling pairs between them, in line with CoinMarketCap.

Read extra: Pi Network’s Token Debuts at $195B Value Despite Minimal Liquidity