Here’s why Pi Network founders could be crypto billionaires

The Pi Network price has continued to underperform the broader cryptocurrency market, having fallen by nearly 80% from its February highs.

Pi Coin (PI) has been left behind in the ongoing crypto recovery, which has pushed Bitcoin(BTC)above $93,000 and lifted the total cryptocurrency market cap to nearly $3 trillion.

Pi’s market cap has dropped from $19 billion to $4.62 billion, while its fully diluted valuation has tumbled from over $300 billion to $66 billion. However, publicly available data suggests that Pi Network’s founders, Nicolas Kokkalis and Chengdiao Fan, have become crypto billionaires.

A report released on Friday showed that Pi Network has a maximum supply of 100 billion tokens. Of these, 65 billion have been allocated to the millions of “pioneers” and community members.

Pi Network core team is allocated tokens worth $13.2 billion

Twenty billion tokens have been allocated to the core team, while 10 billion have been reserved for the Pi Network Foundation. The core team, consisting of Kokkalis and Fan, controls the 20 billion tokens, currently valued at $13.2 billion based on the network’s FDV. If the two share these tokens equally, their combined net worth from PI alone stands at approximately $6.6 billion.

While it remains unclear how many employees work at SocialChain, Pi Network’s parent company, Pitchbook reports that the company employs around 40 people. Assuming that only Kokkalis and Fan benefit from the core team’s allocation, each would still hold over $1 billion in tokens.

Additionally, the Pi Network Foundation has been allocated 10 billion tokens, currently valued at over $6.6 billion. Although the foundation’s structure has not been made public, it is common practice for project founders to control these reserves, potentially increasing their personal net worths.

There’s also a likelihood that Kokkalis and Fan hold a portion of the 65 billion tokens distributed to community members.

However, the two founders currently cannot access most of these funds, as they remain locked. According to PiScan, the network will gradually unlock tokens until May 2028, with an average monthly unlock of 131.2 million coins, currently worth about $87 million.