Pi Network says it’s seeing a familiar pattern on social media. In a May 15, 2026 post on X, the project’s Core Team warned “Pioneers” to avoid impersonation scams tied to giveaways and other incentives.
The immediate concern is account verification. The Core Team clarified which accounts users should follow, and it tied the guidance to Pi’s own onboarding and migration progress.
What Pi Network said
Pi Network’s Core Team reported that its broader ecosystem has grown to more than 60 million users. According to the same thread, roughly 30% have already been approved and verified through its Know-Your-Customer procedure. The team also said more than 16.7 million users have been migrated to Mainnet.
With that scale, the Core Team pushed a specific safety instruction. It said the Pi Safety Center and official project channels should be treated as the source of truth. It also pointed users to the two Pi founders’ X accounts, Nicolas Kokkalis and Dr. Chengdiao Fan.
The team said both founders’ accounts received affiliate badges. Those badges, per Pi, help Pioneers “identify” the only real accounts.
There’s a caution baked into that, too. The Core Team noted the founders are not particularly active on social media, with the most recently visible posts showing from years ago. That detail matters because scammers often run more frequent posting cycles than the real account they’re copying.
The Core Team also warned users to be careful about scammers impersonating people linked to the project, unofficial accounts, and links that claim to represent Pi.
Why it matters
This is not a brand-new threat model. Pi Network is effectively telling users that “follow the wrong link, get drained” is still the attack path.
The key operational detail is the verification workflow. Pi specifically told users to validate information through the official Pi Safety Center and through the official Founder accounts, rather than through whatever account appears to be “acting on behalf” of Pi.
Affiliate badges also become part of the defense. If an attacker replicates usernames or profile pages, badges are one of the few visible signals users can check quickly before clicking anything.
Market impact
Pi’s message is aimed at user safety. Still, it comes with second-order effects. Warnings like this often shift users toward official sources and reduce click-through on social posts that look like marketing.
For retail, that can mean fewer scam “opportunities” driven by fake airdrop or giveaway announcements. For scammers, it raises the cost of impersonation when badges and official listings are harder to fake.
Pi isn’t alone here. The same Crypto Potato piece references similar warnings from other projects.
- Ripple’s CTO Emeritus warned his X audience about fake accounts impersonating him and promoting fake airdrops or giveaways.
- Shiba Inu has posted cautions to avoid suspicious posts and ads, and it recently warned about multiple fraud attempts involving the SOU NFT.
What to watch next
Pi’s Core Team gave a clear instruction set. The next step is whether the project keeps reinforcing the same verification points as new “official-looking” accounts appear.
Watch for:
- Additional Pi Core Team posts that restate the Safety Center and account verification guidance.
- Evidence that scammers adapt by changing tactics or rotating through newly created accounts.
- More cross-project consistency, since the referenced warnings from Ripple and Shiba Inu show this is a broad industry problem.
| Item | What Pi Network said | Source in provided text |
|---|---|---|
| Ecosystem scale | Over 60 million users in the broader ecosystem | Pi Core Team post mentioned in Crypto Potato |
| KYC approval | About 30% verified through Know-Your-Customer | Pi Core Team post mentioned in Crypto Potato |
| Mainnet migration | More than 16.7 million migrated to Mainnet | Pi Core Team post mentioned in Crypto Potato |
| Account guidance | Follow only the two founders’ official X accounts, identified via affiliate badges | Pi Core Team post mentioned in Crypto Potato |
| Safety instruction | Verify info via the official Pi Safety Center and official founder accounts | Pi Core Team post mentioned in Crypto Potato |
| Scam behavior | Impersonators push giveaways and misleading links claiming to represent Pi | Pi Core Team post mentioned in Crypto Potato |
Crypto Potato notes this appeared as “Pi Network Issues Urgent Safety Warning for All Pioneers,” after the same project thread on X dated May 15, 2026.