Pi coin dips 65%, memecoins minting on Solana nosedives

Pi Network’s token has dropped over 65% in less than 24 hours following its much-awaited mainnet launch. The token’s entry into the markets came at lower values than the IOU price predictions of over $60, and shortly after launch, it dropped below the $1 mark after holders started taking exit positions.

Pi Network officially launched its open mainnet on Thursday morning, allowing users to trade PI on centralized exchanges for the first time. 

The token debuted on platforms such as OKX, Gate.io, Bitget, and Pionex, reaching a peak price of $2.1 before nosediving. Early Friday Asian market trading hours saw the token accelerate downwards to $0.6, its all-time low value, per Coingecko data.

Have Pi holders commenced profit-taking? 

Investors are talking about the huge selloff on social media platforms. Some crypto traders on X have doubts about PI’s huge 100 billion token limit. One trader said that Pi Network didn’t give ample Know Your Customer (KYC) permissions to users who had larger amounts of PI. This has made it harder for them to move coins to the mainnet. 

“PI Network will never recover due to their total supply of 100 billion PI,” the trader wrote. “It looks like the team dumped on retail investors using hype.“

Replying to the naysayer, Pi coin supporters bashed the allegations, with one disclosing they successfully underwent the verification and transferred over 2,000 tokens. 

Another market observer echoed liquidity concerns, claiming the token’s total market value had suffered a staggering $100 billion loss since launch. 

“70% down from ATH, $100B+ wiped out of FDV, 10% up from ATL,” the trader reckoned. “Retail investors lost billions, airdrop farmers dumped their bags, and as I predicted, PI collapsed right after TGE.”

Solana memecoin launchpad activity cools down

Meanwhile, Solana’s Pump.fun, the blockchain’s leading token launchpad, has seen a significant drop in new token launches and revenue in recent weeks.

According to Solscan data, the number of daily token launches on Solana plunged to its lowest daily launch of 27,820 last Wednesday, an approximately 70% decline from the 2025 high of 95,578 seen on January 26. 

On the same day, Pump.fun, responsible for more than half of all Solana token launches, recorded just 35,152 new tokens, its weakest performance since December 2024. According to a Dune Analytics dashboard, revenue also tumbled to $1.69 million, the lowest since early November. 

January was among Pump.fun’s most active months, buoyed by political figures like US President Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, launching tokens before the former took up his presidential duties.

As of the time of this publication, the platform has over 7.8 million tokens launched, with over 13.578 million addresses. Data from Solana-based artificial intelligence (AI) decentralized exchange, Boltrade.ai, revealed 82% of Pump.fun’s volume has crashed since Christmas Day. 

1/ https://t.co/FcpcwRedjZ is a Farm for Insiders & Dev Rugs

10-20K tokens minted daily, all free—sounds bullish? Nah. Most are dead in hours.

Only 2-5 pumpfuns launched in the last few days are still above $1M

Last week, pumpfun's graduating rate dropped to 0.87% (the… pic.twitter.com/gAiFxMYnZP

— Boltrade (@boltrade_ai) February 21, 2025

The exchange shows that most token developers have launched coins to use investors as exit liquidities, which is why fewer than 10 token trading volumes have managed to stay above $1 million for more than 3 days to a week.

Argentine President Javier Milei is also partly to “blame” for the memecoin launch cooldown after he promoted a memecoin called Libra (LIBRA) on February 14 through his official X account. Milei claimed Libra was linked to Argentina’s initiative to support the growth of small businesses.

A few hours later, the Argentine leader rescinded his sentiments on the memecoin and deleted the post. But not before the token’s creators faced allegations of insider trading that purportedly helped developers initiate a $251 million rug pull within hours. According to blockchain analytics firm Nansen, over 80% of LIBRA traders suffered losses of at least $1,500.

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