Pi Network Unlocks KYC for 417,000 Users and Promises a Fix for 497,000 Stuck Wallets

Pi Network has unlocked its identity-verification bottleneck for more than 417,000 stuck users and promised a one-week fix for another 497,000 wallets that could not claim their tokens — a double repair that touches nearly a million accounts on one of the most-used mobile crypto projects in the world.

By Diego Rivera | September 23, 2026

The Hook: Why Nearly a Million Pi Users Were Stuck

If you have ever tapped a mining button on the Pi Network app, you know the promise: earn PI coins on your phone, pass an identity check, and eventually move your balance to the live blockchain. The reality for many of the project’s claimed 60 million engaged “Pioneers” has been a queue. As of a September 9 report by crypto.news, only about 16.6 million users had completed migration to the live Mainnet — a conversion rate of roughly 27.6 percent. The two fixes announced this week by the Pi Core Team attack the biggest reasons users get stuck at the finish line.

The first fix removes duplicate-account flags. Pi’s automated checks had labeled hundreds of thousands of accounts as possible duplicates — think of it like a bank freezing your account because someone with a similar name also banks there. After refining those checks, the Core Team confirmed that more than 417,000 users identified as separate, real people can now resume their Know Your Customer, or KYC, identity verification. The second fix targets roughly 497,000 “Fast-Track” wallets that received Mainnet wallets but could not claim their migrated PI because the new wallets contained no PI to pay the network’s small transaction fee — like being handed a full safe with no key to open it.

On-Chain Evidence: What the Fixes Actually Change

It is important to understand what these updates do and do not do. Removing the duplicate flag does not automatically approve anyone. Affected users must still complete remaining identity checks and satisfy every other item on Pi’s Mainnet Checklist before their transferable balances move to the live network. The 417,000 newly eligible applicants represent only about 2.5 percent of the previously reported migrated-user count, so this is a repair job, not a wave of new supply hitting the market.

• 417,000 users — can resume KYC after duplicate-account flags were cleared.
• 497,000 wallets — Fast-Track accounts that failed claims for insufficient gas; a technical fix is planned within one week.
• Yoti applicants — users verified through the third-party service can resubmit through Pi’s native KYC system.
• Indonesian KIA holders — applicants rejected over child identity cards can resubmit with another accepted document.
• Protocol V27 — moved to Testnet 2 after processing about 250 transactions per block without a reported failure.

The Yoti detail matters for long-time users. Pi used the third-party identity service Yoti during an earlier stage of its KYC program, but some of those old applications lacked the liveness information — a camera check proving a real person is present — that Pi now requires. Affected users should open the KYC app and look for a resubmission option rather than assuming an old Yoti approval still counts. Indonesian applicants rejected after uploading a KIA, a child identity card, received a similar route forward.

Pi has also expanded its identity-check toolkit. Liveness checks now support older mobile devices, which could unblock users whose phones could not run the earlier version. The project has additionally started a pilot program for palm-print authentication, though it has not disclosed the pilot’s size, eligible regions, or whether palm verification could eventually replace any existing step. The scale behind all of this is real: according to the September 9 report, 1,094,680 human validators have completed more than 526 million verification tasks.

The Core Conflict: Migration Delays vs. a Mobile-First Dream

Pi Network’s central tension has always been the gap between its enormous mobile user base and the number of people who actually hold usable, on-chain PI. The project has said that more than 18.1 million users passed its native KYC checks and over 16.7 million Pioneers migrated to Mainnet as of May. But earlier reporting on Pi’s first Open Mainnet year identified migration delays as one of the network’s unresolved operating issues ever since the firewall opened in February 2025. Every stuck wallet is a user who mined PI for years but cannot trade, send, or use it.

The gas-fee failure highlights how the migration machinery can break in unglamorous ways. A user can pass KYC, have a migrated balance waiting, and still be unable to claim because a freshly created wallet has zero PI to pay the transaction fee. Pi’s planned fix would restore access for the affected accounts and, according to the project, prevent the same problem from blocking future Fast-Track migrations. Users whose claims failed for insufficient gas can simply retry the claim process — the Core Team advises checking the wallet or migration interface rather than creating new wallets or repeating unrelated KYC steps.

Meanwhile, the technical roadmap grinds forward. Protocol V27 — described as the final planned upgrade in Pi’s current development sequence — progressed from Testnet 1, where deployment began on August 21, to Testnet 2. The earlier roadmap targeted a September 15 Mainnet deployment, and the fact that testing is still ongoing indicates that schedule has slipped. Protocol 26, by comparison, required approximately 421,000 node operators to update their software by August 11 or lose Mainnet connectivity. V27 is linked to smart-contract authentication, RPC infrastructure, and automated market maker liquidity pools — the plumbing a functioning DeFi ecosystem needs.

Market Implications: What It Means for PI Holders

For regular investors, the practical takeaway is straightforward. If you or someone you know gave up on a stuck Pi account, check the KYC app: hundreds of thousands of previously frozen applications just became actionable, and the gas-fee fix is expected within a week of the announcement. For the broader market, the question is supply and credibility. PI’s price history — a post-listing peak of 2.99 USD before falling toward 0.15 USD by May 2026 — reflects deep skepticism about how much of the token’s promised utility is real. Smoother migration means more tokens reaching wallets that can actually transact, but it also means the project must finally deliver on the DeFi features V27 is meant to enable.

United States users should note one caveat: the update changes access only for accounts affected by Pi’s internal KYC and wallet processes. The announcement did not describe a separate procedure for U.S. Pioneers or announce a change to PI’s availability through American trading platforms.

The Verdict

Pi Network is doing unglamorous, necessary work: clearing identity-verification backlogs, patching gas-fee failures, and supporting older phones. That is what a project serious about its users looks like — but it is also a reminder of how far the network remains from converting its 60-million-strong claimed user base into active on-chain participants. Watch the one-week gas-fix deadline and the V27 Testnet 2 results. If both land cleanly, Pi takes a real step toward credibility. If they slip again, the migration gap becomes the story. Market snapshot at the time of writing: Bitcoin trades near 86,173 USD, Ethereum near 2,753 USD, and Solana near 118 USD.

The cryptocurrency market remains highly volatile. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.