Pi Network Due Diligence
PI Network due diligence
Intrigued by some accusations in the social media about Pi being a scam and after investing about 600+ USD in Pi coins on the exchanges I decided to do some basic and amateur due diligence into publicly available information about Pi Network.
Disclaimer: I believe in Pi, I have been a Pioneer for 5 years and belive in the mision and vision of this project. Having said that, I also wanted to objectively assess publicly available information to corroborate my “feelings” towards this project.
What I am about to state here are 100% facts, publicly available information or information available after subscribing to a service providing this information, thus also publicly available. It is not my intention to suggest anything - just to share what is available in the public about this project. Anyone can then decide what to think on their own.
In 2018 SocialChain Inc. was incorporated which is active and is now listed as developer of Pi Network, latest employee count is 16.
Chengdiao Fan is listed as SocialChain Inc. Chief Executive Officer, Secretary and Chief Financial Officer, according to filed and publicly available Statement of Information Corporation, issued by State of California - Statement of Information Corporation (from September 2024).
Pi Network is a member of Affiliate Program of Stanford University, Stanford Engineering / Computer Science: https://www.cs.stanford.edu/get-involved/affiliate-programs/our-members
SocialChain principal address is 1159 SONORA CT., SUITE 140 SUNNYVALE, CA 94086, by looking at Google Maps, this is a shared office space.
SocialChain INC. shared office space
Company mailing address is 555 BRYANT ST. #408 PALO ALTO, CA 94301, by looking at Google Maps, this is a UPS store office.
SocialChain Inc. Postal Address
Since SocialChain Inc. is a private company, no financial information is available on various US government webistes.
Some subscription websites provide more details about SocialChain Inc.
During SocialChain Inc. operations, they had a total of three investors: 137 Ventures, Ulu Ventures and Designer Fund. Upon checking these companies and their investments in Pi Network, I found the following:
- two of the three investors do not list Pi Network on their website on the list of companies they have invested in currently or previously
- all three investors did not disclose the amount of investment available to the public, however they have disclosed the amount for all other companies they invested, screenshots below.
137 Ventures list of investments
ULU Ventures list of investments
Designer Fund list of investments
Some of the investor websites do not list Pi Network unfortunately:
https://www.designerfund.com/#our-companies
https://www.137ventures.com/portfolio
One interesting detail that cought my eye, probably something common in the world of legal documentation - day before mainnet event, SocialChain Inc. updated its Terms of Service with the important notice: “IMPORTANT NOTICE: THESE TERMS OF SERVICE ARE SUBJECT TO BINDING ARBITRATION AND A WAIVER OF CLASS ACTION RIGHTS AS DETAILED IN SECTION 15. PLEASE READ THESE TERMS OF SERVICE CAREFULLY.”
Screenshot below:
Pi Community Company, parent company of SocialChain Inc. has a separate website: https://www.picommunity.co
Pi Community Company is registered in the following address: Ugland House, 121 South Church Street George Town Cayman Islands. This information is publicly available on USPTO website: https://uspto.report/company/Pi-Community-Co
Background on Ugland House is extensive, it had a bad reputation back in the day of Obama presidency, but it is a legal place to register a company nowadays as thousands of companies are registered there. Back in 2008 there were 18.000 companies registered at this address according to the report published on the Ugland House website: https://www.uglandhouse.ky/PDF/GAO_Report.pdf . Some unconfirmed online estimates are that the number is now around 40.000.
So far this is all I could find out about SocialChain Inc. and Pi Community Company. As a Pioneer promoting transparency and decentralisation, I would love to have more information and communication about this project available. I know private companies are not required to disclose any financial information, however as a potential investor who would like to invest potentialy and hopefully thousands of USD more in Pi Network I would like to have more available facts apart from what is already available on Pi Network website. I would love to know the structure of the company, how many employees are working, updates on progress of the project etc.
Thank you for your attention and I invite you all to a healthy, objective and factual discussion, without false, misleading, factless accusations or rumors.
Edit 1: a big thank you to all fellow Pioneers who have pointed out the errors in my post which I have corrected.
Edit 2: some fellow Pioneers felt this post is to discredit the Pi Network, which I fully reject. I have also added a link from Stanford University that lists Pi Network as a member of their Affiliate program.
Edit 3: "Pi Community Company" information added. LinkedIn page of "SocialChain Inc." removed due to highly likely being fake and not related to Pi Core Team or SocialChain Inc.