Pi Network's OUSD payments plan specifies no requirement to buy or hold PI

A dollar that enters OUSD does not have to pass through PI on the way in or out. According to Open Standard, businesses can mint and burn the token at one dollar to one with no fee ^[14]. Bridge, a Stripe company, issues it ^[13], and the reserves are held at BlackRock, Lead Bank and BNY, according to Open Standard ^[15]. Open Standard also promises monthly reserve attestations ^[15].

Merchants have a plain reason to want that. Using CoinGecko closes, a $100 sale priced at PI's October 1 close of $0.090064 would have been paid in about 1,110 coins ^[16][20]. At the October 8 close of $0.080775, those coins were worth about $89.69 ^[20]. The seller would have lost 10.3% in seven days ^[19]. Crypto.news describes the same mismatch for a shop that quotes in a volatile coin and pays its suppliers in dollars ^[18].

Open Standard's partner terms say members can share rewards tied to the supply and activity they bring to the network ^[4]. As published, then, a partner gets paid for growing OUSD. Pi says it wants its own coin to remain the primary crypto in its ecosystem ^[10]. The team has not disclosed the product, the settlement path, a launch schedule, reward amounts, which Pioneers qualify, whether rewards come as OUSD or PI, who pays for them, or what role PI plays when someone makes a dollar payment ^[11].

The open terms could still go another way. A fee or settlement role for PI on Mainnet OUSD transfers would turn payment volume into PI demand, roughly in proportion to use. A rule that Pioneers must hold PI to qualify for rewards would give them a reason to keep it. Rewards paid out in PI would add coins to circulation.

We think the plan as written would grow a dollar business on Pi's network, or rather it would once there is a Mainnet integration to grow it on ^[2]. Until then PI trades on the demand it already has. That was about $2.8 million in 24-hour volume on October 11 ^[17], with the price down about 7.3% from the October 1 close ^[21] despite a 3.4% rebound from October 8 ^[22]. The counter-thesis is that people who come for dollar payments stay and buy PI for other reasons. A big enough user base could produce that without any rule forcing it. We would be proved wrong by a published design in which a payer, a payee or a rewarded Pioneer has to acquire or keep PI.