Pi Core Team (PCT) internal scandal that few people know about

Here is the English translation:

While the focus of the majority on the Pi Network (PI) project is mainly on the price of PI in the market and the amount of PI that players can mine, not many people know about the project team and the history of this team's development.

The following are some observations from BeInCrypto about the team that founded and developed Pi Network over the past six years. Users refer to them as the Pi Core Team (PCT).

The Pi Core Team (PCT) has decreased from 3 to 2 people

Pi Network was officially launched on March 14, 2019 (Pi Day). Over the past 6 years, although the Pi app has attracted tens of millions of users, there is still very little information about the founders. The project's website states that there are currently two founders, Nicolas Kokkalis and Chengdiao Fan.

Founders of the Pi Network project. Source: Minepi.com

There is information suggesting that Nicolas Kokkalis and Chengdiao Fan, two key members of the Pi Core Team, are a married couple. This is mainly mentioned and circulated in some unofficial sources, such as posts on the Reddit social network and websites related to Pi Network. The content usually describes them as a couple who met at Stanford University and collaborated to build the Pi Network project. However, there is no official confirmation from Nicolas Kokkalis, Chengdiao Fan, or the official Pi Network website publicly confirming their marital relationship.

The Pi Core Team in the past.

Previously, this list also included another name, Vince McPhillip. Vince McPhillip was the third co-founder and former Head of Community of Pi Network. He is a social activist with degrees from Yale and Stanford. However, in 2020 he left the project due to internal disagreements. This event became a litigation scandal that few Pi investors mention.

Pi Core Team's internal disagreement in 2020, what happened?

Information about Vince McPhillip is also limited. His personal page on X no longer mentions the project, but still often shows interest in topics about AI and Web3.

"I am most passionate about connecting people in ways that are more holistic than the sum of the parts. I have dedicated most of my academic and professional career to building collective intelligence systems," McPhillip said in an interview before leaving the Pi Network project.

In December 2024, a Watcher asked him what he thought about the project, and Vince McPhillip replied:

"I'm no longer involved with Pi." – Vince McPhillip commented.

In 2020, McPhillip filed a lawsuit accusing the other co-founders of pushing him out and misappropriating the company's funds. The lawsuit claimed that his ownership was diluted and his role was sidelined. In this lawsuit, it was revealed that Kokkalis and Fan are the co-founding couple of Pi.

The lawsuit filed by Vincent McPhillip at the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara on July 22, 2020, targeting the defendants including Dr. Nicolas Kokkalis, Dr. Chengdiao Fan, Pi Community Company, and SocialChain, Inc.

• McPhillip accused Kokkalis and Fan of having marital issues leading to inappropriate behavior in the workplace, including yelling and physical violence towards each other that he witnessed. This created a hostile work environment, affecting his ability to perform his CEO role.
• McPhillip claimed that in April 2020, he had temporarily left the work environment to consider company issues, but Kokkalis and Fan declared that he had "abandoned his position" and "voluntarily resigned". They then terminated his access to Pi/SocialChain's servers and bank accounts without his consent.
• Kokkalis and Fan were accused of threatening to issue additional shares at a low price (0.00005 USD/share) exclusively for the founders, in order to dilute McPhillip's shares in Pi. McPhillip claimed this was a malicious tactic to reduce the value of his shares, while they knew he could not participate due to the current conflicts.
• Pi had raised Capital through the sale of SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity) instruments with a maximum valuation of 20 million USD in 2019 and 2020. McPhillip accused Kokkalis and Fan of deliberately putting pressure by linking a minor intellectual property issue to an upcoming 500,000 USD investment, even though the issue was not core.

McPhillip stated that the issues with Kokkalis and Fan had "impeded my ability to perform my CEO role as I had to devote increasingly more time to resolving personal conflicts and a hostile work environment."

They denied McPhillip's allegations, claiming he was fired for violating the company's code of conduct. The lawsuit was settled in July 2023, but specific public information about the outcome is still limited.

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