The native cryptocurrency of the Pi Network ecosystem, Pi, picked up 7.8% on Monday, continuing its bull market recovery to $0.100. The buying pressure can be attributed to a significant surge in trading volume and a temporary easing in geopolitical tensions. While the Pi Network price is yet to gain derivative support, the spot data shows renewed interest ahead of the critical Protocol v25 network fork.
Pi Network Price Sees Caution Buying Pressure Amid Stagnant OI
On Monday, June 20, the global crypto market cap surged roughly 1% to reach $2.23 trillion.
The modest but significant bullish push occurred following positive diplomatic signals from Iran, which the foreign ministry said negotiations with the U.S. could be resumed if the Americans would protect Tehran’s national interests.
Spokesperson Esmail Baghaei also noted that mediators in recent days had transmitted messages to Iran’s officials, suggesting there could be de-escalation in a region facing tensions. After the news, the Pi Network continued its recovery motion and moved past the $0.1 psychological level.
The 24-hour trading volume rose 5% to $28.4 million, according to CoinMarketCap data. A significant surge in trading volume accompanying this rally indicates strong retail interest in the market.
Despite the spot volume boost, the derivative market activity shows hesitation among traders. The Pi Network open interest (OI), projecting the total value of outstanding futures and options contracts, recorded a continued consolidation around $10M amid the price jump.
Open interest consolidating in this range often signals a lack of strong conviction in the move’s sustainability—potentially indicating that the PI coin price rally could be driven more by short-term momentum than fresh speculative positioning.
A trend with strong participation is usually accompanied by a high or rising OI and price gains. Flat or consolidating OI during an up-move, as seen here, can point to a “wait-and-see” approach, where traders are closing old positions or rolling them over rather than aggressively adding new ones.
Meanwhile, the OI-weighted funding rate is at 0.5%, according to CoinAnk data. A positive funding rate confirms that existing longs are willing to pay for their exposure.
This setup suggests a cautious bullish scenario where traders are buying into the spot market, but not in the derivatives market. The lack of OI growth with the funding rate remaining high could make a long squeeze more likely. However, if the upward trend continues and a pattern of buying emerges, OI would help maintain the upward momentum.
An upcoming development that could act as a potential catalyst for further sustainable growth in upgrade to Protocol v25, scheduled for June 22. This hard fork comes with native Zero-Knowledge (ZK) cryptography protocols, implementing both BN254 and Poseidon.
These developments can help to build safe and personal smart contracts, enabling users to enter and execute transactions on the ledger without sharing any personal information. The update needs to be done now for the community. To prevent their Desktop Node and Supernode operators from being disconnected from the main ledger, they will need to upgrade their client software to the v25 framework.
Pi Network Price Attempts to Retake Key Support
With a 4-day rally, the Pi Network price jumped from $0.076 to $0.1007, registering a gain of 30.4%. Consequently, the asset’s market cap bounced to $1.08B. Following this surge, the buyers attempted to regain their footing above the descending support trendline that they lost during the early July correction, as shown in the chart below.
The daily relative strength index (RSI) indicator also spiked to 48, further reinforcing the neutral stance among market participants.
If the near-term price action shows sustainability above the $0.1 support, the buyers could recoup the bullish momentum for a higher leap to $0.119 to $0.139.
On the contrary, if the 20-day exponential moving average continues to pressurize the PI coin belowthe $0.1 level, the price action could create a fresh lower high and continue the prevailing downtrend.
