Pi Network - Smart Contract Update!

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Hi, Dave Rosco here. It is Friday, April 17, 2026, and we've got a lot to talk about today. Um, there are two Pyore team blog posts that came out since uh my last update that I want to talk about. Um, there's been an update to the node upgrade road map. Uh, and we'll talk about that as well. And, uh, people have been talking about this all over the internet. Um, but smart contracts um are back in the news and we'll explain why in just a moment. But first, let's take a look at the metrics. The circulating supply is 10.1 billion Pi with 28.3,000 user accounts migrated since the last update, totaling 46.6 million Pi. Now, if that number seems a little low, you're not wrong. Um during since my last update, there have been significant pauses in migrations. Um but that is no longer the case. There is currently 34.2 million Pi in the Pi migration wallet and migrations are happening now. They were not happening earlier in the day and they had not been happening for two days prior, but they are resuming today. So or as as of this moment. So, that's good. The migrated unlock rewards are at 4.1 billion Pi with 46.2 million Pi unlocked since my last update and now free to be traded on the open markets.

[00:01:38]There are two new blog posts uh from the Pi Core team since my last update. Uh the first one here talks about Pi testnet RPC server released uh and it says enabling scalable smart contract development. So, um I'm not going to go through this entire thing. It I mean it's there's not a lot here because uh this is more geared towards developers, not the general general audience. And you can see here uh at the top it says announcement developer. So, this is not meant for the average user, but average users benefit because it enables um smart contracts. So, that's good. Uh and it also enables some other things not directly related to smart contracts. Um, but let me see the cliffnotes version here. So, what does the RPC server do?

[00:02:28]It gives developers a way to communicate on the blockchain. So, they can integrate with um their apps to talk directly to the blockchain. Um, and that's that's good, you know. Um, right now they there's the Horizon API, but you're kind of limited to what you can do with it, and it's rather slow. Um, so for for the Pi network to be successful, you have to have a way to communicate directly with the blockchain in a very fast way. Uh, and that's what this RPC server allows.

[00:03:04]Um, it is part of the Pi network's um smart contract infrastructure. Um, the RPC server is a milestone towards developing, testing, and eventually deploying smart contracts within the Pi ecosystem. Like I said, as you as you'll see some things here, it's not only smart contracts, but it is a very important piece of it, especially for allowing um third party developers to uh develop their um and test their smart contracts. I'm curious to see what the requirements are going to be for um users or you know um app developers to develop their own smart contracts and put them on the blockchain. I'm guessing they'll probably have to have some sort of vetting. Uh I don't really know. Um because once the once the blockchain is live, well it is live, but once um the RPC server is on the blockchain and um and pretty much anybody that runs a node can install their own um RPC server. I just don't know how they're going to stop potentially um hostile smart contracts from making it on the blockchain. So, we'll have to see. The RPC server um supports uh free readonly calls. So, things that query account states, balances, or contract data, but does not actually change the state of the blockchain. We'll be able to make these calls and these perform these actions for free. No fees will be charged. Um now anything that modifies the blockchain such as executing a contract or updating data like transactions um that will still go through the normal um transaction processing and the associated fees. Um so basically if if you're not changing the state of the blockchain and you're just getting information from it, it's free. If you make a change then fees will be incurred.

[00:05:07]Why this matters for apps is that uh having fast free read access can make PI apps more responsive and practical especially for user interfaces, dashboards, uh back-end services and smart contract testing. Uh like I said, the Horizon API is there, but it's slow.

[00:05:29]Um, and this is a way to talk directly to the blockchain uh much faster and and you can integrate it with your apps. So that's even better. Web apps, right? You know, in integrating with the web apps um you don't really want to do that, right? Um because then you inherit a lot of overhead just to support the web portion just to use the Horizon API. And this this bypasses all of that. Now I'm sure the um the RPC server has its own API and in fact I know it does but it's more direct. If you are an app developer then you can test this now. It's on testn net. It's not yet ready for for mainet. They provide the curl command that you can use to check it out to see what this looks like. Now, as to when this will be released to the the general um blockchain to the mainet blockchain, I should say, uh is undetermined, right?

[00:06:24]They're they're it's on test net right now and they will put it through its paces and see how it how it goes and then determine when they can um roll it out to mainet. Now testn net is on protocol 23 already. So I would not expect to see it before the mainet roll out is to at least version 23. And I say at least because uh recent information has opened things up a little bit and I'll explain.

[00:06:53]Uh if you run a node you can run your own RPC server. Um and you can use that for internal use or even make it available for public access. Um I don't have much details on that but it the Pi network or the Pi core team does list that as um a possibility and and like I said there's not there's not a lot here. Um so if you want to read this blog post you're by all means you can um but we'll be hearing more about this RPC server in the in the near future. So stay tuned.

[00:07:28]And then we have another one here. Um, introducing subscription smart contract capability on testnet. And this is a big one. Um, it says here, "The Pi network is launching its first smart contract capability on Pi testnet. Subscription support.

[00:07:47]Subscriptions are one of the most common business models among services in modern society, but they have been difficult to implement on blockchain systems. By bringing subscriptions to the ecosystem using Pi's smart contract capability, Pi is fostering use cases that map directly to real products and recurring utilitydriven services such as e-commerce, streaming, online tools, and more built directly on the blockchain.

[00:08:17]Now I'll come back to this but I just want to show you uh as part of this there's now a second um pirc which is pi request 2 for uh pi request for comment 2 and this is where they solicit comments on the first smart contract uh and it explains how it works uh the use cases uh and then if you go to uh and there's more information here overview data types and all that which which are uh if you're a developer that would be of of interest to you. Um but if you go back and take a look at the smart contracts link, it takes you to this page here and the first smart contracts is the subscription smart contract. So, I saw this first uh and I was already planning on talking about it, but then later in the day, the Pyore team put out a blog post. So, we'll use that as our talking points instead. So, let's get back to that. This builds on the recent node and protocol upgrades that prepared the blockchain for smart contract functionality along with the Pi testnet RPC server. See, like I said, RPC server is going to be pivotal for smart contracts. Um, that gave developers a practical way to interact with blockchain data and test application flows. To open the subscription smart contract to technical review and community feedback, PI has released the second PI request for comment or PIRC2.

[00:09:58]Pyrc2 gives developers and other reviewers a chance to examine the design closely, identify bugs or edge cases if any, and suggest improvements. It also gives the ecosystem a way to evaluate the contract before roll out to the mainet. And then this particular smart contract is in the process of being reviewed by a third party. Um, which is a very good idea if not required. Um, but I don't I don't know anybody uh who's not trying to scam you um that would skip the step of getting a third party audit on their smart contract because these things are running on your blockchain. One mistake can cause disaster. So um you know a zeroday exploit or some sort of security vulnerability and you're toast and uh and if and if you're not completely toast certainly millions of users are going to be affected negatively. So got to audit and this talks about how the subscription smart contract works. Uh the subscription smart contract gives developers and businesses a way to build recurring service models into applications or their local commerce while processing the payments through the blockchain and preserving subscriber control over funds. Now that's an important one and we'll you'll see that in a minute. A key part of the design is that subscribers can approve a defined budget for the contract to use without needing to resign every billing event, which is great because um normally blockchain transactions require a signature on every transaction and and they still do. it won't work without it.

[00:11:42]But they've come up with a way using the smart contract that will apply your signature for a finite period of time without you having to manually make the transaction. So, it's automating the transa transaction. I don't know exactly how they're doing that safely. Uh because to make that you need to have um effectively your private key and they do have that now in the app that you have the private key whereas previously all you had was your your passphrase pneummonic. Um so anyway that that's interesting how that will work. We'll have to see. Um, and it says here that approval can also be limited to a defined billing horizon such as monthly charges for up to a year. At the same time, the approved funds remain in the wallet of the subscriber until the charges are actually processed. So, you sign up for a year, say, right? That and it's going to be build monthly. You only get build for the first month and that gets taken out of your wallet via the smart contract. um the rest stays there.

[00:12:48]So if for example you spend all your Pi and it's no longer there, your subscription will automatically either pause or cancel and no other transactions will occur. So in the meantime, you're in total control of the Pi that you allocated for this subscription and it will get build automatically via the contract as long as that Pi is still in your wallet. So that's good. Um, you know, a lot of attempts to do things like this on the blockchain previously did require you to precommit the entire cost of whatever it is you were subscribing to upfront. And that was how they got around the um individual signatures cuz they basically could um do it all with a single signature. But then the company effectively has all of their money up front and who knows what's going to happen in the future. They could go belly up tomorrow and then then good luck getting your money back. It's just a it's just a bad situation. So, this is good news. As long as the wallet has enough balance when a charge comes due, the subscription remains in effect instead of requiring the full budget to be locked up in advance. That's what I was just talking about. This allows the contract to support recurring payments without giving up the wallet level control that blockchain systems are meant to preserve or sending the total budget out of the contract.

[00:14:18]Subscriptions are not a new idea in blockchain, but they have usually involved trade-offs on the blockchain.

[00:14:25]For example, other blockchains have had proposed standards for recurring payments, but these approaches have generally come with trade-offs such as off-chain coordination, repeated authorization, or added account infrastructure.

[00:14:41]Pi's model takes a different approach.

[00:14:43]It is designed to let subscriptions work without requiring a new signature for every billing event while still keeping the approved funds in the subscribers wallet until billing actually happens.

[00:14:56]That is a meaningful design choice in web 3 where recurring payments have often been bu um have often been harder to implement cleanly without adding friction, preunding or extra infrastructure. The subscription capability offers an early look at how smart contracts on PI may be developed and tested. At this stage, the focus is on technical review, bug identification, and experimentation at the command line and backend level. With PI RC2 now published, developers are encouraged to review the subscription contract design, surface bugs or edge cases, and suggest improvements.

[00:15:36]Well, that's a big deal. Um, I I would imagine that they chose this particular smart contract to release first because it has the most obvious utility, especially for developers right now. Um, because this is something they can put in their apps to add value immediately.

[00:15:53]Some of the other smart contracts are more in support of other functions. Um, so they're not as immediately uh beneficial to developers. Um, so this is good news. It's this is a big deal. Um, and I don't know how long it'll take for this smart contract to make its way uh onto mainet. Um, but I guess that will that will depend on what is found. And um, and thank god this particular thing is not open source because um, there have been cases where bad actors have inserted um, malicious code into smart contracts and there are very clever ways to do it. Um, so this is something that needs to be owned by the Pi network. um at least for now. Another thing I wanted to talk about was the Pi node upgrade road map. Um the version 21 is now live on the blockchain and they just opened the door to um allow node operators to upgrade to version 22. Uh and I did that this morning and it was very painless.

[00:16:59]It was it took maybe 5 minutes and it was done. And I've already confirmed that my anti-cammerbot has no problems at all working on this new version. Um, and it even says here, this is a very quick upgrade. Internal data migrations are quick. Expected downtime less than 15 minutes. And I concur.

[00:17:18]Uh, now what is new is we have some new migration milestones, right? The originally this went to 23 and stopped. And I was curious why they chose 23 because um the stellar consensus protocol is currently at version 25 and version 26 is already in testing on testn net for stellar consensus protocol. Um so I wasn't sure why the pi core team was leaving that out and turns out they're not. They've announced that there's a road map for migrating up to version 26 and they had and they add 26 here presuming that it'll be uh ready for prime time on mainet at least on the stellar consensus protocol um by by then. And if you notice here that all of this will happen before Pi 2 day um almost a week before. So this is big news. This is really This is really cool. I'm getting excited about the activity that I'm seeing um by the Pi Core team on advancing the state-of-the-art for the blockchain and rolling out some of these features that are going to have a high impact on um on the ecosystem. Well, that's all I've got today. Um there's a lot of big things to talk about here. Um some of you will agree they're big things and some of you won't, but that's okay. Um, not all of this news is geared towards everybody.

[00:18:50]Um, but there's something here for everybody and uh and I hope you learned something new and uh and are getting more excited about where we're going. I know I sure the hell am. So, if anything breaks, I'll be sure to hop on here and let you know. But until then, don't panic. Stay the course. And remember, the success of the Pi network begins with you. Pi to the moon. Peace.