As per a blog post on minepi.com, published on October 17, Pi Network’s latest feature will see users able to directly contact other members of the Pi ecosystem, but only if willing to stake their Pi “when initiating a message request”.

“members across the Pi Network community can message each other, one-to-one, thanks to a Web3 mechanism designed to incentivize constructive connections while curbing unwanted communications”, reads the post.

‘Staked DMs’, as the feature is being dubbed, is an addition to the existing Pi Chat ecosystem which, until now, appears not to have facilitated 1:1 messaging between Pi community members.

According to the post, Staked DMs is the second instance of cryptocurrency economics to have been implemented by Pi Network, with the first allegedly being “the novel integration of Pi cryptocurrency on Fireside Forum to address social content curation”.

In addition, to prevent unwanted activity, “should members abuse the messaging privilege by sending excessive automated messages or spam, they will not only forfeit their staked Pi but they will be subject to higher stakes to start a new request”.

Unlike traditional messaging applications such as WhatsApp or Telegram, users of Pi Chat will have to lay down a stake in Pi in order to make message requests to other parties. Ostensibly, this mechanism is implemented to prevent “information overload”, but the design may also give Pi assets some much needed utility.

Pi’s blog post goes on to discuss some of the issues with existing messaging platforms in the Web2 world. Most notably, the “dilemma between complete inaccessibility and tons of spam and noises”.

“The intent behind Staked DMs is to provide a groundbreaking leap in allowing Pioneers to connect across Pi’s decentralized environment in a way that disincentivizes spam and incentivises more organic communications, including not just text but image and video sharing in the future as well.”