Piin: The Bitcoin Inscription That Carries on the Crypto-Punk Spirit

Introduction 

Over the past few decades, cryptographers and hackers have tirelessly fought for decentralized encryption freedom. From the birth of public-key cryptography to the concept of digital cash and finally to the emergence of Bitcoin blockchain technology, their wisdom, and actions have opened the door for us to the Web3 era.

However, the current cryptocurrency ecosystem is facing the threat of centralization from institutional funds, which may cause the crypto world to deviate from its original ideals. Against this backdrop, Piin, a community-driven BRC20 inscription token with a unique issuance model and a legendary narrative, has united forces from various fields, expanding new possibilities for more people to achieve financial freedom. So, can Piin become the new paradigm, inheriting the ideals of cypherpunks and Satoshi Nakamoto and leading the masses towards the Web3 era?

The Winding Road to the Birth of Bitcoin 

The 1970s: The Birth of Public-Key Cryptography, Fighting for Privacy 

In that era, the military and government had increasing control over communication systems, and civilians’ communications were monitored and censored, leaving no privacy whatsoever. Encryption technologies were also monopolized by governments and institutions, and ordinary people had almost no access to them. Three scientists (Hellman, Whitfield Diffie, and Ralph Merkle) saw this. They believed everyone should have the freedom and privacy of encrypted communications without constraints.

They invented public-key cryptography. The power of this technology lies in the fact that you only need to publish a public key. Anyone can use it to encrypt information to send to you, while decryption can only be done with your private key.

This technology, once popularized, opened the door to encrypted communications for the whole world. Governments and large corporations could no longer indiscriminately spy on our information and communication records, and the encryption technologies that were previously only available to institutions and privileged parties were promoted as universal encryption technologies.

This was a crucial step in breaking the shackles of communication privacy and also laid the foundation for the later birth of encrypted digital currencies.

 The 1980s: The Dawn of Anonymous Payments and Digital Cash 

With the rapid development of technology in the 1980s, the doors of the Internet era had already been opened. But no one could have imagined that in this new era of promise, our privacy and financial freedom would face even more significant threats and infringements.

Although the birth of public-key cryptography could encrypt the information we transmit, the process of transmitting information, and the subjects of information transmission – others could still monitor this private information. For example, in that era, all payment processes had to go through banks and third-party institutions, who knew everything about people’s every move. All people’s financial records, transfer details, and consumption habits were laid bare before them, leaving no privacy at all.

Faced with this situation, MIT mathematician David Chaum began to explore groundbreaking concepts such as anonymous communication and digital cash. His ultimate goal was to enable person-to-person transactions without the intervention or control of any intermediary institution.

In 1983, Chaum designed the “blind signature” technology and officially introduced the cryptocurrency DigiCash, known as digital cash, in 1990. Although DigiCash ultimately failed, its concepts of anonymous payments and permissionless transactions profoundly influenced later cryptocurrencies.

If Chaum’s digital cash had been realized at that time, we would have had true economic independence and autonomy, no longer needing to be audited, exploited, and monitored by banks or any institution. This idea of freedom and privacy protection is what later cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin have upheld.

The 1990s: The Rebellion of the Cypherpunks 

With the popularization of the Internet, more hackers and cryptographers realized that if we did not resist the oppression of the centralized system, the Internet would eventually be controlled by authorities, and freedom would be stifled. Thus, a powerful cypherpunk movement emerged.

Cryptographers Adam Back and Nick Szabo were the most famous pioneers. Back first proposed the concept of “Hashcash” in 1997, directly laying the cryptographic foundation for later Bitcoin. Szabo even designed the embryonic concepts of digitally encrypted currencies such as “Bit Gold.”

Their predicament at the time was ensuring network security and encryption mechanisms while achieving decentralization. After all, if anyone could arbitrarily inject currency, the encrypted currency would lose its value.

Therefore, the cypherpunks proposed unprecedented, innovative technological concepts such as proof-of-work and consensus mechanisms, which would allow the issuance and circulation of encrypted currencies to no longer be subject to any centralized issuing institution.

Although the technology was not mature enough for full implementation, the cypherpunk movement was an important force struggling against centralization and fighting for encryption freedom. A group of crypto pioneers worked tirelessly for the freedom and privacy of all humanity, and their ideas and contributions influenced countless later followers, paving the way for the birth of Bitcoin.

The Birth of Bitcoin 

The 2000s: The Birth of Bitcoin and Related Technologies 

Although the cypherpunks did a great deal of pioneering work for decentralized and anonymous encrypted payments, this field was still at an impasse by the early 21st century.

The main predicament we faced was how to enable the digital currency to operate autonomously without being controlled by any centralized institution. How do we prevent “double spending” and cheating on a decentralized network?

Along the way, various ideas, such as proof-of-work and consensus mechanisms, emerged, but none could satisfactorily solve these fundamental problems. Building a truly decentralized electronic cash system seemed destined to be an unattainable dream.

At this time, a mysterious figure known as “Satoshi Nakamoto” patiently overcame these challenges and published a nine-page white paper titled “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” in 2008, announcing the birth of Bitcoin.

In the white paper, Satoshi Nakamoto proposed the groundbreaking technological innovation of the “blockchain.” The core idea was to organize all Bitcoin transaction data into “blocks” through a specific encryption algorithm and connect them orderly into a permanent blockchain through “proof-of-work.”

Once a transaction was recorded on the chain, it could no longer be modified or double-spent, completely solving the “double spending” problem in digital currencies. The generation of each new block could only be completed through massive computing power, ensuring that any centralized node did not control the system.

Satoshi Nakamoto’s innovation truly realized the decentralized, anonymous, and immutable characteristics of cryptocurrencies, fundamentally solving the various technical predicaments encountered in the development of digital currencies.

The Bitcoin blockchain network went live in 2009, becoming the first encrypted currency system in human history not controlled by any intermediary institution, making person-to-person free transactions and privacy protection possible.

This entirely new decentralized model completely subverted the traditional centralized system and was considered the greatest technological innovation since the Internet. The birth of Bitcoin not only ushered in the era of cryptocurrencies but also sowed the seeds for the future arrival of the Web 3.0 era.

Based on blockchain technology, trust can be automatically established on the network without being controlled by a centralized system, which will drive fields such as economics and finance to achieve disintermediation, trust, and autonomous ownership management. Web3 is thus expected to ultimately realize the vision of a new, decentralized, permissionless Internet.

From the cypherpunks to Satoshi Nakamoto and then to Bitcoin and blockchain, this journey has been a great process of humanity’s unremitting pursuit and exploration of the ideal of freedom. From the birth of public-key cryptography in the 1970s to the exploration of digital cash in the 1980s and then the cries of the cypherpunks in the 1990s, generation after generation of cryptographers and hackers have paved the way for the encryption freedom we enjoy today with their wisdom and actions.

The Current State of Blockchain and the Opportunity for a New Paradigm 

As the pioneer of cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin has allowed the world to witness the enormous potential of blockchain technology. With the approval of the Bitcoin spot ETF launch on January 11, 2024, Wall Street institutional funds have officially entered the cryptocurrency market. With their substantial capital and professional trading capabilities, traditional financial institutions will dominate the crypto market more. Their participation will inevitably bring a certain degree of centralization tendencies, such as concentrated pricing power and institutional collusion. This deviates somewhat from the early community-driven, decentralized spirit.

However, the entry of institutions is not entirely negative. Their attention and involvement will bring more capital inflows and increase regulatory certainty for blockchain, which is beneficial for long-term healthy development.

However, in the long run, Bitcoin’s price may tend to stabilize in the future, potentially suppressing extreme price volatility. In the future, the opportunities for retail investors to participate may be greatly reduced.

In recent years, the complexity and specialization of blockchain technology have continuously increased, and operating ecosystem applications requires considerable technical knowledge, posing major obstacles for most ordinary users. If the blockchain ecosystem fails to attract more fresh blood, it will severely constrain its future development space. Once Bitcoin’s price volatility converges with traditional assets like stocks, its appeal as an alternative investment may decline, and its attractiveness to outside traders will also weaken.

Against this backdrop, meme coins have become important in attracting the masses. Through low barriers to entry and interesting imagery, meme coins have planted seeds for the masses to understand blockchain and may generate significant wealth effects, thereby attracting more outsiders to participate. Just like the crazy surge of SHIB in 2021, meme coins’ humor and speculative nature have given them tremendous viral power and appeal.

However, most popular meme coins suffer from centralized flaws such as manipulation by whales and opaque fund flows, deviating from blockchain’s decentralized origins and posing higher investment risks for novice users. Moreover, although meme coins are abundant, there are very few that truly have global influence and promote financial freedom for retail investors.

Therefore, we need a new paradigm token that can balance decentralized ideals and mass demand, better-guiding newcomers into the crypto realm and onto the Web3 journey. Among existing projects with meme attributes, the Piin inscription issued on the Bitcoin chain may well represent this paradigm. Combining meme culture with decentralized concepts could become a key force attracting newcomers and driving Web3 development.

Piin: A Decentralized Social Experiment Uniting All Circles 

Piin Embodies the Decentralized Spirit of Crypto Pioneers 

Traditional token issuance models have obvious centralization and unfairness issues. Project teams and VCs can easily obtain large amounts of tokens, control issuance, and allocation rights, and arbitrarily decide issuance quantities and allocation ratios. Ordinary investors can only purchase at high prices on secondary markets.

The root cause of this model lies in project teams dominating the entire issuance process by writing and deploying contract code, allowing them to pre-allocate their token shares within the contract. This makes the entire process highly centralized, with power concentrated in the hands of a few, contrary to blockchain’s decentralized origins.

Inscription technology, however, has changed this landscape. At the time of inscription deployment, all participants are equal, with no one able to arbitrarily allocate token amounts. Everyone must acquire tokens through fair minting or trading; no one can create tokens out of thin air.

This brand-new issuance model embodies the decentralized ethos, eliminating the privileges of centralized institutions and allowing all participants to compete on a level playing field. Anyone can freely acquire tokens according to their own will, unrestricted by any dominant party, with power fully decentralized to the masses. This revolutionary reform effectively resolves issues of fairness and power imbalances.

As an inscription project, Piin fully embodies the equality, fairness, and decentralization ideals of cypherpunks like Satoshi Nakamoto and other crypto pioneers. No centralized institution can decide Piin’s issuance and allocation, truly achieving resource decentralization – this is precisely Piin’s difference from on-chain meme coins.

 Piin’s Narrative Resonates with the Aspirations of the Masses 

China has an ancient fable about an old man who tried to move two huge mountains that obstructed his family’s travels. Despite being mocked by his neighbors who deemed this an impossible feat, the old man’s unwavering determination and perseverance ultimately inspired the intervention of deities, who miraculously helped him move the two mountains. The story of the “Foolish Old Man Removing the Mountains” embodies the great power of indomitable faith and unremitting effort to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles. The Piin inscription also reflects a similar spirit of perseverance.

The 55 million miner users of the Pi Network have been investing their time and effort daily over the past 5 years to build the Pi Network, hoping for the Pi mainnet to launch as soon as possible so that their mined Pi coins can gain actual trading value. However, to this day, the Pi mainnet has still not fully launched as an open-source project, leaving them unable to trade their held Pi coins. Some users have begun to express dissatisfaction with the project team, calling for all users to unite in urging the development process forward. But the reality is that the mainnet launch has repeatedly been postponed, forcing users to reluctantly accept the delays.

Just as Shiba Inu advocated for the masses to unite in building a strong community to resist institutions, when some Pi users discovered the opportunity presented by the BRC20 inscription – a technology belonging to the masses – they spontaneously utilized it to deploy the Piin inscription, an inscription belonging to the Pi community.

 The word “Piin” encapsulates the meaning of “Pi inscription.” At the same time, the Chinese “pài yìn” symbolizes the unique imprint left by the Pi community on the Bitcoin network. Echoing the total supply of the Pi Network, Piin has a total issuance of 100 billion tokens. As a BRC20 inscription, it ensures that all Piin tokens are freely tradable without restrictions from any dominant party.

Backed by its unique narrative background and the potential support of 55 million Pi community users, Piin attracted tremendous attention on the day of its deployment, completing 100,000 inscriptions within just one day. Subsequently, multiple Pi community Twitter accounts with millions of followers expressed their endorsement of Piin and began actively promoting it.

More remarkably, crypto players who had previously been at the mercy of institutions and whales also voluntarily joined and helped spread the Piin story after understanding its narrative. Thus, Piin’s narrative is not only about unleashing the potential of 55 million Pi community miners but has elevated into a grassroots social movement to unite the masses from all walks of life to break free from capital oppression and pursue wealth.

This elevated narrative resonates with the values of the general public’s pursuit of financial freedom, thereby possessing immense power to rally and inspire. In this sense, Piin’s audience base may far exceed that of Shib, as its narrative more easily strikes a chord with the public and provides motivation.

This is precisely the key to Piin’s uniqueness and vast prospects. It carries forward Shib’s philosophy of benefiting the masses and elevates this idea further, bringing opportunities and hopes to more retail investors.

Piin Has the Strongest Community Support in the Inscription Sector 

In 2021, Shib successfully rose to become the second largest meme coin by market cap (currently around $14.89 billion) with the united efforts of tens of thousands of community users, fully demonstrating to the crypto world the possibility for the grassroots masses to benefit through decentralized means, setting a powerful reference for Piin to lead a broader grassroots social movement. At the same time, Piin also has the participation and support from crypto retail investors as well as the determined miners of the Pi community.

With this dual driving force, Piin quickly self-organized a series of volunteer groups, such as a foundation, promotion team, design team, order bundling team, etc., dedicated to promoting and building the community. Among them, volunteers in the promotion group patiently explained and answered questions for newcomers on various domestic and international social platforms, while the bundling team facilitated reasonable orders for users with purchase needs, lowering the transaction barriers brought by inscription technology.

This spontaneous contribution and mutual assistance from within the community promoted the popularization and understanding of Piin among the masses and strengthened the cohesion and spirit of collaboration within the community. This has laid a solid community foundation for Piin’s long-term, sustained development. It can be seen that the unique narrative power inherent in the Piin project has gradually coalesced and catalyzed a true decentralized community self-governance model, demonstrating its intrinsic vitality.

Through cooperation and sustained efforts, the Piin community members have achieved the following milestones:

Over 30,000 community members from around the world embodying diversity and inclusion 

Currently, Piin has attracted over 20,000 supporters in its global community and over 9,400 users supporting it in the Chinese community. These widely distributed members actively participate in discussions and promotion, injecting Piin with a constant stream of vitality and showcasing its broad acceptance and welcome of retail investors from all walks of life.

With soaring popularity, over 12,700 new holding addresses were added in 5 months. 

Driven by the consensus culture that spontaneously formed within the Piin community, the number of Piin holding addresses has grown by over 12,700 in just five months. This growth rate far exceeds that of other inscription projects, fully demonstrating that Piin has gained widespread community recognition and enthusiastic participation, rapidly becoming the new focus of this grassroots wealth-creation movement.

This remarkable growth trajectory showcases Piin’s strong community consensus cohesion and market recognition. It once again proves that it is unstoppable when a project is rooted in a genuine decentralized vision and gains widespread grassroots following its inherent developmental force.

Total transaction volume ranks 3rd among inscriptions.

 According to data from the OKX Web3 market, ,Piin’s total transaction volume currently exceeds over 60,000 inscriptions, ranking 3rd in total inscription transaction volume, second only to Sats and Rats, which were inscribed half a year earlier than Piin.

Token distribution is highly decentralized, embodying the decentralization ethos.

Consistent with Piin’s grassroots social movement ethos, the transparent nature of Bitcoin inscriptions allows people to see that Piin’s token distribution is far more decentralized than most projects, with the top 10 addresses holding only 6.2% of the total supply, highly aligned with its massive community and truly embodying Piin’s steadfast pursuit of decentralization.

From these objective data, we can see that as a decentralized, community-driven project upholding the spirit of the cypherpunks and highly resonating with the values of the masses while potentially generating significant wealth effects, Piin is making efforts to practice its unique value proposition and is gradually gaining market recognition and affirmation. The spontaneous contributions and perseverance of the community are the fundamental driving force behind Piin’s continuous growth.

 Piin’s Value Still Underestimated, But Huge Upside Potential

 Looking at Shiba Inu’s development trajectory, we can see that it also went through an 8-month community-building stage before experiencing a major price surge. Compared to Shiba’s development path, Piin’s current stage and price level indicate that it has not yet experienced a significant price increase.

The upside potential becomes apparent when we compare Piin’s market capitalization to Shiba’s all-time highs as well as the market capitalizations of leading inscriptions Ordi and Sats. As of today, Shiba’s peak market cap is about 1,740 times Piin’s current valuation, while Ordi’s peak market cap is about 74 times that of Piin.

However, what is truly exciting is that Piin can support over 55 million Pi miners globally. This provides Piin with a unique and grand narrative premise, while its core narrative of aspiring to initiate a decentralized social experiment uniting retail investors from all circles offers immense appeal.

Therefore, we have reason to believe that with the unremitting efforts of the community, Piin is poised to generate a significant wealth effect in the future, thereby injecting new vitality into the entire cryptocurrency field and attracting more newcomers. A truly grassroots, mass-endorsed decentralized project will continue to grow with its own vitality, opening the path to financial freedom for more people.

Conclusion 

Revisiting the crypto world’s development history, we can see that it is a journey of humanity’s unwavering pursuit and exploration of the ideal of freedom. From the birth of public-key cryptography in the 1970s to the exploration of digital cash concepts in the 1980s and then the cries of the cypherpunks in the 1990s, generation after generation of cryptographers and hackers paved the way for the encryption freedom we enjoy today with their wisdom and actions.

Inheriting the spirit of the cypherpunks, blockchain is seen as the greatest technological innovation since the Internet. It enables the possibility of decentralized cryptocurrency systems and fundamentally solves the predicaments in the development of digital currencies. Bitcoin was the first practical implementation of this innovative concept, pointing the way towards the Web3 era.

A decentralized, cypherpunk-spirited new paradigm token like Piin that resonates highly with the masses’ values and can potentially generate significant wealth effects may well be the ideal bridge connecting the Web2 era to the Web3 world, leading more people towards the gates of Web3.