Pi Network ships a DEX while the market looks away

Protocol 26 tightened the smart contract layer, Protocol 27 is bringing automated market making to testnet, and a decentralized exchange is planned for September; the token has not moved above nine cents. Summary Pi Network completed its Protocol 26 mainnet upgrade by August 11, 2026, hardening contract security, state management, and cryptographic capabilities across 421,000 active nodes, and the Pi Core Team called it a major step before the “final planned upgrade,” Protocol 27. Protocol 27, currently on testnet, adds smart contract authentication, RPC server infrastructure, and an automated market maker (AMM) liquidity pool, with the Pi Core Team targeting September 15 for mainnet deployment. Pi Launchpad tested a combined order book and AMM decentralized exchange on testnet during the SLICE token launch from June 11 to 28, with 242,000 Pioneers committing 15.92 million Test-Pi. PI traded at $0.090929 on August 31, 2026, down more than 97% from its all-time high of $2.99 set on February 26, 2025, with a market cap of approximately $1.01 billion and 24-hour trading volume of $3.7 million. The supply headwind is structural: approximately 1.21 billion PI tokens are scheduled to unl...