Many well-known altcoins, including Cardano (ADA), Hyperliquid (HYPE), and Zcash (ZEC), have posted some gains over the last 24 hours, yet Pi Network’s PI has failed to join the party.

Despite its renewed slump, though, the crypto community sentiment toward it is highly bullish.

Bad News?

It’s quite challenging to find a leading cryptocurrency that has performed worse than PI over the past year or so. The token saw the light of day in February 2025 and at first rocketed to $3, while its market capitalization neared $14 billion.

However, what followed next was a major retreat, and now it trades at around $0.08, which is quite close to the all-time low of approximately $0.07 and represents a 97% crash from the historical peak.

That said, it seems rather strange that the crypto community remains predominantly optimistic about the token. At least that is what CoinMarketCap suggests, noting that it holds the second-highest bullish sentiment in the entire market. The first spot is for Kaspa (KAS), while industry leaders like Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Ripple (XRP) rank below PI.

Extreme optimism shouldn’t necessarily be interpreted as good news. The crypto sector is actually a weird one, and euphoria moments are often followed by a plunge, since prices tend to go against overall expectations.

Upgrades and More

The team behind Pi Network has announced multiple ecosystem improvements since the start of 2026. Among the latest was the migration to protocol version 25, which was not disclosed on the project’s X account or website, but numerous users claimed it was in effect.

Next is protocol v26, with Pi Network recently reminding that all mainnet node operators must complete the upgrade by August 11 to remain connected to the network.

X user Ben told their more than 500,000 followers on X that the improvement is already live, with protocol 27 sitting next as “the one they’ve called the final upgrade.”

“Almost nobody watching PI thinks about node compliance, but that deadline tells you how much of the network is genuinely maintained versus just switched on and forgotten. I’d love to see the update rate published on the 12th,” they added.

Some of the ecosystem advancements have managed to stage brief rebounds for PI over the last few months, yet bears were quick to regain control. We have yet to see whether the upcoming upgrades will trigger a more meaningful rally or whether PI will continue to underperform in the near future.

Source: CryptoPotato