With Consensus 2025 just weeks away, new Pi Core Team (PCT) updates are drawing attention from the Pi Network community. The team has officially approved a new decentralized app (DApp) called Fruity Pi, and according to community member DR Altcoin, DApps and long-awaited KYB approvals might speed up.
What is Fruity Pi?
Fruity Pi is a puzzle game where players match fruits and earn rewards. Users can also link their Pi wallets and spend Pi tokens in the game. The Pi Core Team has given it a purple check mark, which means the app has been reviewed and approved.
This approval is a big step, as only verified apps are allowed to fully launch and grow within the Pi ecosystem. DR Altcoin believes this move could speed up other pending approvals and finally kickstart delayed KYB (Know Your Business) checks—an important requirement for businesses to launch services on Pi.
Major Pi Network Announcement During Consensus 2025 Event?
These updates are happening just before the major Consensus 2025 summit in Toronto. This is one of the biggest events in the crypto space, and many expect the Pi Core Team to be present. With a new DApp approved and a possible wave of more approvals coming, Pi Network might be preparing to show its progress on a global stage.
Pi Coin Exchange listing Fading
Despite recent progress in the Pi ecosystem, Pi Coin is still facing problems getting listed on major exchanges. HTX was the first to list Pi after its mainnet launch in February 2025, but later removed it. Now, crypto payment service Banxa has also stopped supporting Pi Coin.
Even BitMart, which once supported Pi, has paused trading for more than a month, waiting for KYB approvals before moving forward with the 1:1 Pi swap. Meanwhile, top exchanges like Binance and Coinbase have not shown any signs of supporting Pi Coin.
Pi coin Price Analysis
Pi Coin is facing increasing bearish sentiment, despite the overall crypto market doing well. Pi Coin price today is trading at $0.65. It has stayed in a tight range between $0.60 and $0.68 over the past two weeks. While there’s been a small price increase in the last 24 hours, the RSI (Relative Strength Index) has dropped below 50, suggesting there’s still pressure on the price.
FAQ
Can I really earn and spend Pi tokens in Fruity Pi?
Yes, Fruity Pi allows players to link their Pi wallets, earn rewards, and spend Pi tokens within the game.
What announcements can we expect from Pi Network at the Consensus 2025 Event?
With Consensus 2025 approaching, the Pi Core Team may reveal new DApp approvals, KYB updates, and ecosystem progress.
When will Pi Coin be listed on major exchanges like Binance or Coinbase?
There’s no official timeline yet. Exchange listings likely depend on KYB approvals and Pi Network’s mainnet readiness.
Is it a good time to buy Pi Coin?
Pi Coin is still in early development with limited exchange access, so it’s best to watch for updates before making a move.
The collapse of the MANTRA (OM) token has left investors reeling, with many facing significant losses. As analysts comb through the causes of the collapse, many questions remain.
BeInCrypto consulted industry experts to identify five critical red flags behind MANTRA’s downfall and reveal strategies investors can adopt to steer clear of similar pitfalls in the future.
MANTRA (OM) Crash: What Investors Missed and How to Avoid Future Losses
On April 13, BeInCrypto broke the news of OM’s 90% crash. The collapse raised several concerns, with investors accusing the team of orchestrating a pump-and-dump scheme. Experts believe that there were many early signs of trouble.
In addition, the project adopted an inflationary tokenomic model with an uncapped supply, replacing the previous hard cap. As part of this transition, the total token supply was also increased to 1.7 billion.
However, the move wasn’t without drawbacks. According to Jean Rausis, co-founder of SMARDEX, tokenomics was a point of concern in the OM collapse.
“The project doubled its token supply to 1.77 billion in 2024 and shifted to an inflationary model, which diluted its original holders. Complex vesting favored insiders, while low circulating supply and massive FDV fueled hype and price manipulation,” Jean Rausis told BeInCrypto.
Moreover, the team’s control over the OM supply also raised centralization concerns. Experts believe this was also a factor that could have led to the alleged price manipulation.
“About 90% of OM tokens were held by the team, indicating a high level of centralization that could potentially lead to manipulation. The team also maintained control over governance, which undermined the project’s decentralized nature,” said Phil Fogel, co-founder of Cork.
Phil Fogel acknowledged that a concentrated token supply isn’t always a red flag. However, it’s crucial for investors to know who holds large amounts, their lock-up terms, and whether their involvement aligns with the project’s decentralization goals.
Moreover, Ming Wu, the founder of RabbitX, also argued that analyzing this data is essential to uncover any potential risks that could undermine the project in the long term.
“Tools like bubble maps can help identify potential risks related to token distribution,” Wu advised.
2. OM Price Action
2025 has been marked as the year of significant market volatility. The broader macroeconomic pressures have weighed heavily on the market, with the majority of the coins experiencing steep losses. Yet, OM’s price action was relatively stable until the latest crash.
OM vs. TOTAL Market Performance. Source: TradingView
“The biggest red flag was simply the price action. The whole market was going down, and nobody cared about MANTRA, and yet its token price somehow kept pumping in unnatural patterns – pump, flat, pump, flat again,” Jean Rausis disclosed.
He added that this was a clear sign of a potential issue or problem with the project. Nevertheless, he noted that identifying the differentiating price action would require some technical analysis know-how. Thus, investors lacking the knowledge would have easily missed it.
Despite this, Rausis highlighted that even the untrained eye could find other signs that something was off, ultimately leading to the crash.
Strategies to Protect Yourself
While investors remained optimistic about OM’s resilience amid a market downturn, this ended up costing them millions. Eric He, LBank’s Community Angel Officer, and Risk Control Adviser emphasized the importance of proactive risk management to avoid OM-style collapses.
“First, diversification is key—spreading capital across projects limits single-token exposure. Stop-loss triggers (e.g., 10-20% below buy price) can automate damage control in volatile conditions,” Eric shared with BeInCrypto.
Ming Wu had a similar perspective, emphasizing the importance of avoiding over-allocation to a single token. The executive explained that a diversified investment strategy helps mitigate risk and enhances overall portfolio stability.
“Investors can use perpetual futures as a risk management tool to hedge against potential price declines in their holdings,” Wu remarked.
Meanwhile, Phil Fogel advised focusing on a token’s liquidity. Key factors include the float size, price sensitivity to sell orders, and who can significantly impact the market.
3. Project Fundamentals
Experts also highlighted major discrepancies in MANTRA’s TVL. Eric He pointed out a significant gap between the token’s fully diluted valuation (FDV) and the TVL. OM’s FDV reached $9.5 billion, while its TVL was only $13 million, indicating a potential overvaluation.
“A $9.5 billion valuation against $13 million TVL, screamed instability,” Forest Bai, co-founder of Foresight Ventures, stated.
Notably, several issues were also raised regarding the airdrop. Jean Rausis called the airdrop a “mess.” He cited many issues, including delays, frequent changes to eligibility rules, and the disqualification of half the participants. Meanwhile, suspected bots were not removed.
“The airdrop disproportionately favored insiders while excluding genuine supporters, reflecting a lack of fairness,” Phil Fogel reiterated.
The criticism expanded further as Fogel pointed out the team’s alleged associations with questionable entities and ties to questionable initial coin offerings (ICOs), raising doubts about the project’s credibility. Eric He also suggested that MANTRA was allegedly tied to gambling platforms in the past.
Strategies to Protect Yourself
Forest Bai underscored the importance of verifying the project team’s credentials, reviewing the project roadmap, and monitoring on-chain activity to ensure transparency. He also advised investors to assess community engagement and regulatory compliance to gauge the project’s long-term viability.
Ming Wu also stressed distinguishing between real growth and artificially inflated metrics.
“It’s important to differentiate real growth from activity that’s artificially inflated through incentives or airdrops, unsustainable tactics like ‘selling a dollar for 90 cents’ may generate short-term metrics but don’t reflect actual engagement,” Wu informed BeInCrypto.
Finally, Wu recommended researching the background of the project’s team members to uncover any history of fraudulent activity or involvement in questionable ventures. This would ensure that investors are well-informed before committing to any project.
4. Whale Movements
As BeInCrypto reported earlier, before the crash, a whale wallet reportedly associated with the MANTRA team deposited 3.9 million OM tokens into the OKX exchange. Experts highlighted that this wasn’t an isolated incident.
“Large OM transfers (43.6 million tokens, ~$227 million) to exchanges days prior were a major warning of potential sell-offs,” Forest Bai conveyed to BeInCrypto.
Ming Wu also explained that investors should pay close attention to such large transfers, which often act as warning signals. Moreover, analysts at CryptoQuant also outlined what investors should look out for.
“OM transfers into exchanges amounted to as much as $35 million in just an hour. This represented an alert sign as: Transfers into exchanges are below $8 million in a typical hour (excluding transfers into Binance, which are typically large given the size of the exchange). Transfers into exchanges represented more than a third of the total OM transferred, which indicates a high transfer volume into exchanges,” CryptoQuant informed BeInCrypto.
Strategies to Protect Yourself
CryptoQuant stated that investors need to monitor the flows of any token into exchanges, as it could indicate increasing price volatility in the near future.
Meanwhile, Risk Control Adviser Eric He outlined four strategies to stay up-to-date when it comes to large transfers.
Chain Sleuthing: Tools like Arkham and Nansen allow investors to track large transfers and monitor wallet activity.
Set Alerts: Platforms like Etherscan and Glassnode notify investors of unusual market movements.
Track Exchange Flows: Users need to track large flows into centralized exchanges.
Check Lockups: Dune Analytics helps investors determine if team tokens are being released earlier than expected.
He also recommended focusing on the market structure.
“OM’s crash proved market depth is non-negotiable: Kaiko data showed 1% order book depth collapsed 74% before the fall. Always check liquidity metrics on platforms like Kaiko; if 1% depth is below $500,000, that’s a red flag,” Eric revealed to BeInCrypto.
Additionally, Phil Fogel underlined the importance of monitoring platforms like X (formerly Twitter) for any rumors or discussions about possible dumps. He stressed the need to analyze liquidity to assess whether a token can handle sell pressure without causing a significant price drop.
Interestingly, experts were slightly divided on how CEXs contributed to OM’s crash. Forest Bai claimed that CEX liquidations during low-liquidity hours worsened the crash by triggering cascading sell-offs. Eric He corroborated this sentiment.
“CEX liquidations played a major role in the OM crash, acting as an accelerant. With thin liquidity—1% depth falling from $600,000 to $147,000—forced closures triggered cascading liquidations. Over $74.7 million was wiped in 24 hours,” he mentioned.
“Analyzing the open interest in the OM derivatives market reveals that it was less than 0.1% of OM’s market capitalization. However, what’s particularly interesting is that during the market collapse, open interest in OM derivatives actually increased by 90%,” Wu expressed to BeInCrypto.
According to the executive, this challenges the idea that liquidations or forced closures caused the price drop. Instead, it indicates that traders and investors increased their short positions as the price fell.
Strategies to Protect Yourself
While the involvement of CEXs remains debatable, the experts did address the key point of investor protection.
“Investors can limit leverage to avoid forced liquidations, choose platforms with transparent risk policies, monitor open interest for liquidation risks, and hold tokens in self-custody wallets to reduce CEX exposure,” Forest Bai recommended.
Eric He also advised that investors should mitigate risks by adjusting leverage dynamically based on volatility. If tools like ATR or Bollinger Bands signal turbulence, exposure should be reduced.
The MANTRA (OM) collapse is a powerful reminder of the importance of due diligence and risk management in cryptocurrency investments. Investors can minimize the risk of falling into similar traps by carefully assessing tokenomics, monitoring on-chain data, and diversifying investments.
With expert insights, these strategies will help guide investors toward smarter, more secure decisions in the crypto market.
Ethereum will launch the Hoodi testnet on March 17, addressing Pectra testing issues encountered on the Holesky and Sepolia testnets.
This move comes as developers work to troubleshoot bugs that could potentially delay the Sepolia fork.
Ethereum Unveils Hoodi Testnet for Pectra Testing
The Ethereum network has been working on the Pectra upgrade to introduce key Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs). These proposals will enhance staking mechanisms and improve the wallet user experience.
However, Ethereum conducts tests in the run-up to its various EIPs. These probes ensure seamless upgrades and mainnet launches, citing methodical testing strategies.
However, in a February 25 post, Christine Kim, a researcher at Galaxy, highlighted the challenges faced in the testing phase of Ethereum’s Pectra Upgrade.
“Pectra is live on Holesky…Seeing a slight uptick in missed blocks but the network participation rate looks strong…some client teams are reporting issues with invalid blocks in the Eth R&D discord… lots more missed blocks and the network isn’t finalizing…Devs are troubleshooting what the issues are. Depending on the scale of the bugs, devs could delay the Sepolia fork… network is still not finalizing, the participation rate has dropped to ~50%,” Kim explained.
To establish whether these creases have been ironed out, Ethereum will launch the Hoodi testnet on Monday, March 17. If testing on Hoodi proves successful, the Pectra upgrade could go live on Ethereum’s mainnet by late April. However, according to Tim Beiko, a key Ethereum developer, delays extending into May remain possible.
“A new testnet, Hoodi, is going live Monday to wrap up Pectra testing. If you need to test validator exits, be on the lookout for it! Everything else can be tested on Sepolia & Holesky. Pectra will be scheduled 30+ days after Hoodi forks successfully, pending infra and client testing. Fusaka planning will run in parallel, with a deadline of March 24 to propose EIPs, and a tentative date of April 10 for a scope freeze,” Beiko articulated.
Ethereum’s Pectra Upgrade timeline. Source: Tim Beiko on X
This means that the Ethereum Pectra Upgrade is contingent on successful testing on Hoodi after previous testnets. With the Hoodi testnet slated for March 17 and Pectra Upgrade at least 30 days thereafter, the update could go live as soon as April 17 or later. Some users expressed dissatisfaction with this delay.
“Pectra delayed by a month. Core devs really can’t ship anything in time,” one user remarked.
Nevertheless, others seemed unsurprised by the timeline, an understanding that likely appreciates the rigorousness of delivering seamless mainnet launches. The launch of the Hoodi testnet next week represents a crucial step in ensuring the stability and effectiveness of the Pectra upgrade.
With developer scrutiny intensifying and planned improvements in staking and user experience, Ethereum’s roadmap focuses on long-term scalability and security enhancements for its network.
“I’m stoked this could make ETH even sharper and more efficient,” a user on X remarked.
Fusaka, the next major upgrade, will follow in 2026. While details remain scarce, Fusaka promises to refine Ethereum’s scalability and efficiency further. This will advance the network’s evolution toward greater usability and adoption.
