22-2-2025 – Bybit CEO Ben Zhou has taken a firm stance against listing the newly launched PI token, citing serious concerns about the project’s legitimacy and a previous warning from Chinese authorities.
Zhou’s announcement on Thursday came as the PI Network, a controversial cryptocurrency project, finally released its token to public trading. The Bybit chief executive referenced a 2023 Chinese police advisory that alleged the project had targeted elderly citizens, compromising their personal data and resulting in pension losses.
“The evidence questioning this project’s legitimacy is substantial,” Zhou stated on the social media platform X, firmly declaring, “Bybit will maintain its position against listing what we consider questionable assets.”
The token’s market debut on rival exchange OKX saw significant volatility, opening at $0.67 before surging to $2, only to subsequently plummet 65% to approximately $0.69. Despite the controversy, several exchanges including OKX, Bitget, and Gate have embraced the token, generating combined trading volumes exceeding $620 million.
Critics have drawn parallels between PI Network’s recruitment-based reward system and notorious schemes of the past. The project’s structure, which increases mining rewards for users who recruit others, has prompted comparisons to the infamous 2017 Bitconnect scandal.
Adding to the scrutiny is the project’s token-locking mechanism, offering enhanced rewards for users who commit to holding their tokens for up to three years. This feature bears similarities to the controversial Hex project, whose founder is currently wanted by US regulators.
Market analysts have raised eyebrows at the token’s ambitious valuations. With a current market capitalisation of $4.18 billion based on a circulating supply of 6.33 billion tokens, concerns centre on the project’s maximum supply of 100 billion tokens. This creates a fully diluted valuation of $67 billion at current prices – a figure that briefly touched $200 billion during launch, nearly double that of established blockchain platform Solana.
The PI Network has not responded to requests for comment regarding these concerns.
Notably, Zhou’s criticism of PI Network coincided with his own challenges at Bybit, which reportedly suffered a $1.5 billion security breach attributed to North Korea’s Lazarus Group on Friday.
