The Pi Day is done, and the expected rally in the price of the token did not happen. There is not much to do now except speculate about the price direction of the token.

Unlike here on Hive, there is no idle moment. You can put the HIVE token to more profitable use if you power it up. It will add value to your voting power. Yes, you cannot control its market price, just like the market price of Pi. However, on Hive, you can at least control the value of your vote.

Long-term holders of Pi don't like trading the token on crypto exchanges. In fact, before Pi Day, there was a campaign among South Korean pioneers to buy Pi on crypto exchanges and send them to their Pi wallets, thinking that it would make the token scarce and would drive the price higher. Long-term holders, particularly the GCV believers, are waiting for the integration of the token in the payment systems of businesses all around the world. We were told that last year's Pi Day had been participated in by more than 55,000 sellers from 160+ countries, and 27,000 of them were active sellers. The total number of pioneers that participated in that event reached 950,000+. That's huge. However, there is no way we can verify the credibility of such a report.

From the perspective of the core team, the bidding of Pi domains is something big that happened after Pi Day. Nevertheless, I don't know anyone in my team of 63 members that made a bid. The one who recommended the Pi mobile app to me was actually suspicious, thinking that the core team controls the bidding and such a bid is only a game suitable for whales. He prefers to apply his own domain for his business.

My Motivation to Write this Article

What prompts me to write this article is my search for a guide on how to introduce Hive to my Pi group, and then I stumble upon geekgirl's content.

The first sentence that captured my eyes is about man's innate desire for centralized control:

We humans tend to bring things closer to centralization due to our desire for power, shortcuts to riches, nepotism, and efficiency.

I think the fear of control identified above is related to this. Many love to talk about "decentralization" these days, but real decentralized networks like Bitcoin and Hive are very rare.

According to the Pi network's whitepaper, once the token has been deployed on the open mainnet, "the system will continue on its own forever" and "there will be no central authority" that will control the currency. The Pi token "will be fully decentralized."

That's good on paper, but many pioneers will attest that their experience is different.

Comparison of Token Distribution Between Pi and Hive

See this chart and compare it to Hive:

Source

I think the 20M+ Pi owned by the 22 whales and 9,998 sharks all belong to the core team. I just don't know the exact number of the core team. I only see three faces.

Compare it to Hive. The last time I checked was January 24, 2025. At that time, the total number of whales is 40, orcas are 270, dolphins are 1,744, and minnows are 8,841.

In the case of Pi, out of 11.5 million KYCed accounts, 11.3 million belong to Plankton and Microbes that own less than 100 Pi per account.

I think the above quote from geekgirl is accurate. Humans naturally gravitate toward centralization, driven by the pursuit of power and wealth. This inclination can be observed in many aspects of society, from governance to financial systems. True decentralization is hard to find.

The Importance of Decentralization

I love how geekgirl describes the decentralized character of Bitcoin:

Decentralization in bitcoin is not necessarily about who hold the coins, how many whales are there. It is about who can change the protocol. There is no one entity or group that can do so. . . Bitcoin would never reach these highs, would never be so successful without decentralization.

For her, decentralization explains the success of Bitcoin. The challenge with Pi is how it can evolve from a centralized network to what the core team wrote in their whitepaper.

The same thing is true in the case of Hive. The network stands apart from both traditional web platforms and many so-called Web3 solutions by offering genuine decentralization. While many projects like Pi claim to be decentralized, sadly, most of them remain under centralized control. They seem to struggle with giving up their power to the community.

The Trust Issue

We are again back to the issue of trust. The founders don't trust the community. I think the community feels the same.

If centralization continues, the network is vulnerable to manipulation and failure. Hive, on the other hand, operates in a way that no single company, team, or individual can dominate. I love how crimsonclad describes Hive:

There is no one to pull the rug on you, as our code base is completely and totally open source, is actively developed and maintained by about 90 different people working inside the ecosystem, and there is no treasury or secret stash of allocated coins that anyone can run off with. Source

I love the confidence of geekgirl. For her, Hive is different not only from Web 2 platforms but also from those who claim to be Web 3. "Hive is actually decentralized." Though many made similar claims, upon close scrutiny, you will find them "lightyears away from decentralization, the Hive way."

Moreover, in contrast to centralized Web 3 platforms that sooner or later will disappear, a true decentralized network like Hive, though slow in its growth, can't disappear.

Summary and Conclusion

A key difference between Hive and projects like Pi Network is the level of decentralization. Hive’s structure prevents any single entity—whether whales, witnesses, companies, or governments—from compromising user accounts and wallets. If Hive were centralized, users would have no real security or ownership, making trust in the platform impossible. In contrast, Pi Network remains highly centralized, with a core team controlling key decisions and the network’s development. This centralization raises concerns about user autonomy and long-term security. Hive’s true decentralization guarantees ownership and protection of digital assets—an assurance that centralized networks like Pi cannot provide.