Just caught that Pi Network founders are actually speaking at Consensus 2026 in Miami today and tomorrow. Dr. Chengdiao Fan is on stage right now talking about Web3 and AI utility, and Nicolas Kokkalis is up tomorrow discussing proof of humanity in an AI world. Pretty big deal for a project that's been relatively quiet publicly.

What's interesting is the timing—they're sponsoring an entire AI track at the conference, and Protocol 23 is launching in just a couple days on May 11. The pi community has been waiting for this smart contract upgrade for a while now. Price-wise, pi has been climbing a bit ahead of all this, though it's cooled off slightly recently at around $0.17. Still, the momentum feels different when actual founders are out there talking about real use cases instead of just dev updates.

The whole angle about verified identity and blockchain-native KYC without compromising privacy is honestly what caught my attention. If they can actually pull that off while the rest of crypto is still figuring out compliance, that could be something. Curious to see if Protocol 23 lives up to the hype or if this is just another conference pump.