Evolution of encryption information flow: from group chats to KOL involution

The Evolution of Information Flow in the Crypto Assets World

Flipping through the development history of Crypto Assets, each page seems to be filled with the words "get rich quick." However, upon closer inspection, what lies behind may be another story.

In the Crypto Assets circle, CT does not refer to medical devices, but is an abbreviation for Crypto Twitter. As an industry observer, I prefer to focus on protocols and data rather than trends and gossip. This leads my information flow to mainly concentrate on project development and learning imitation.

Recently, I noticed that "verbal hype" has become a major trend on Chinese Crypto Assets Twitter. What caught my attention again was a certain project that standardized the extreme marketing of KOLs with the concept of "shearing sheep".

The project successfully established a communication platform between the project party and KOLs, similar to certain internet products, and has become a project that can continue to operate even after launching a coin following a well-known project.

This project is not entirely an original concept; from the media framework to promoting KOL competition, it is essentially a culmination of the Chinese information flow over the past 10 years.

Group Chat Era: 2018~2021

The currently popular Crypto Assets ETF, stablecoins, and DeFi may feel unfamiliar to many early participants. At that time, the Crypto Assets world was more pure, centered around Bitcoin and mining. Although we had nothing, everyone firmly believed that "Bitcoin" would eventually rise.

Specialized content production, primarily based on UGC KOLs, has a clear starting point.

It is widely believed in the industry that it should start from the 3 o'clock community in 2018. Since then, WeChat groups and AMAs have become the main marketing methods for several years, allowing founders to engage in face-to-face online communication with potential "community members."

The joining of a certain well-known investor is an intuitive sign that this niche public opinion feast has been recognized by the public, just like many years later when a certain well-known investor purchased BAYC.

Using common terminology in the encryption circle, AMA is a method of issuing information assets, WeChat groups are launchpads, and the 3 o'clock community was a certain trading platform at that time, forming an absolute memory of the first real bull market for Bitcoin after 2017.

Although the first generation of KOLs already existed at that time, the "Battle of Thousand Media" was still primarily in the form of media, mainly for two reasons: first, the recognition of KOL distribution capabilities was not high at that time; second, it was at the end of the peak period of entrepreneurship in the self-media industry triggered by WeChat public accounts.

In other words, the market recognizes the combination of traditional media personnel and media brands more. Many Crypto Assets media outlets have emerged, among which a certain media outlet may be the most outstanding one.

The period before May 19, 2017, can be said to be the best era in the crypto world, worthy of eternal remembrance.

The Brief Prosperity of Twitterscan: 2022

On May 19, 2021, a ban led to the reluctant "immigration". In reality, entrepreneurs and mining machines crossed the ocean; in spirit, the crypto community shifted to Twitter, completely dismantling the information advantage of Chinese media.

Before this, the founder of a certain exchange secretly invested in a media outlet, the founder of Ethereum personally flew to Shanghai, and the founder of EOS learned to use WeChat. In this situation, Chinese media is even in a favorable position, possessing the world's largest computing power market and consumer market, making it unnecessary to publish content on Twitter.

But after May 19, the situation took a sharp turn for the worse. Encryption gradually became mainstream overseas, from venture capital to finally listing coins, Silicon Valley and Wall Street gradually took control of every aspect, and Chinese media had to learn to lower their stance and communicate with overseas project parties.

One key variable is that a well-known media outlet also disappeared with the ban, and the top content producers and disseminators went silent after getting rich, leaving behind confused Twitter Chinese Crypto Assets users.

Before the arrival of the Crypto Assets circle, there were actually only a few special groups among Chinese Twitter users. The influence of remaining Chinese media has declined sharply.

The KOL trend has only just begun, and KOLs focused on technology and investment research are the first group to achieve results. At that time, certain well-known individuals were the main force in content output, and in-depth research represented by certain key figures became mainstream.

The KOL working as a profession has just started, but since 2022, there have been significant changes.

  1. A certain exchange went bankrupt, a certain stablecoin faced a crisis, and the regulation of centralized exchanges became stricter, leading the market into an absolute low point; even the best project analysis becomes difficult to justify.

  2. The technological narrative is gradually collapsing, and the gap between the ultra-high financing amounts and actual delivery results is becoming increasingly large, which will only fully explode in 2024.

The dual collapse of investment research and technology has finally brought a shining moment for KOLs whose profession is KOL, represented by Twitterscan, which completed a $4.56 million financing in September 2022, with the participation of a well-known investment institution playing a role in gaining public recognition.

The product concept of Twitterscan is not complicated. By organizing encryption users and encryption content on Twitter, it helps users discover market trends, thanks to Twitter's relatively inexpensive API at that time.

But Twitterscan faces a fatal problem: how to complete the business closed loop?

Referring to the monetization methods of certain information stream products, profits can only be obtained through paid APIs, segmenting user levels. Clearly, Twitterscan finds it difficult to justify itself, as it merely extracts publicly available information from Twitter, making it unable to convince users to pay again.

I believe that a certain project has learned some of the essence of Twitterscan - it must be commercialized and must introduce token economics.

Deconstructing Kaito: The "Standard Component" of Twitter InfoFi?

A Social Platform for Chip Entrepreneurship: 2023

A certain social media platform in 2023 is not far from us, and it is also the first stress test of KOL monetization capabilities; a certain project is the second.

The team has completely gone in the opposite direction of the information flow displayed by Twitterscan, encouraging KOLs to trade their own "influence" and even create false influence among each other. This is not surprising, as FOMO is a catalyst for trading volume.

This platform is also the first blockbuster application launched by a well-known exchange after introducing a certain blockchain, and it is, to my recollection, the last large-scale application successfully developed by anonymous developers. According to data, the platform's daily active users can exceed 100,000.

Although addresses cannot be equated to people, I believe this data is relatively credible. Although the English promotion of a certain project ranks high, its influence is obviously not as strong as that of this platform. There are nearly 100,000 active users among the world's Crypto Assets users.

From August 10 to September 1, the platform's highest daily income dropped from 1165 coins to almost nothing. Although there was a brief recovery afterwards, and even accepted investment from a certain investment institution for coin issuance in 2024, it was nothing more than a clichéd storyline similar to that of certain projects.

The platform helps us prove:

  1. The content itself is not valuable; content as a trading subject can only serve as an intermediary for information flow and capital flow, and cannot directly bear the impact of transactions.

  2. SocialFi repeatedly fails: Some projects have proven time and again that the current cryptocurrency space only has "asset issuance" as a replicable model.

Twitterscan indicates that focusing on information flow has no future, while a certain social platform tells us that focusing on capital flow can be sustained for two to three weeks, but they have also jointly explored more information:

  1. Encryption Twitter messages are very valuable, but it's important to be methodical; it's best to separate the information flow from the capital flow.

  2. The subsequent shift to KOLs is an inevitable path, as KOLs are situated in the middle ground between exchanges, project parties, and retail investors.

Deconstructing Kaito: The "Standard Component" of Twitter InfoFi?

A Certain AI Project of Advancing by Retreating: 2024-2025

There is a misconception that a certain AI project was not closely related to KOL business at the beginning.

This project is a direct result of the FOMO AI in the crypto community after ChatGPT shook the world. In February 2023, GPT emerged, and generative AI subtly showed signs of being able to tackle everything. After experiencing internal injuries in 2022 and the failure of the metaverse, the Crypto Assets sector is eager to leverage AI to revitalize itself.

The project's initial business model was AI search, but it was more focused on Crypto Assets content. There are other similar products, but the project seems to have realized that the situation is not looking good.

  1. Traditional blockchain explorer tools have high development costs, poor profitability, and intense competition;

  2. The information analysis tools are not very useful, especially in terms of the ability to discover information; Twitter has not solved this problem.

During the early development of the project, what impressed people the most was the long-term internal testing, which was indeed hard to come by. It is meaningless to judge when the project will shift to KOL rankings, as the success of a certain project has prompted KOLs to actively engage in competition.

The project relies on product strength, rather than the timing of KOL adoption. Before a certain project, crypto KOLs had been surrounded by bots and spam information since 2022 due to their specialization and commercialization, and this project is the first to give "real KOLs" a chance to stand out.

It is bold to speculate that this project may not rely entirely on algorithms to complete KOL ranking and points calculation; human factors may be more important than AI. After all, there are not many crypto Twitter KOLs, and according to the 80/20 rule, a statistical scale of 1,000 to 10,000 is still within the reach of manpower.

Therefore, the project completed the following three steps:

  1. Separate the information flow from the capital flow; KOLs only need to improve their rankings, and certain features will naturally follow. Bot accounts and fake account boosters will be excluded, and the project's marketing team can identify real KOLs through this feature.

  2. A certain feature is not a token, but more like a fair market leaderboard. Although there will be people manipulating the rankings, it is mainly KOLs doing the manipulation, and the sentiment and popularity are controllable. At the same time, KOLs will attract the attention of project parties and exchanges, completing the most critical step: guiding the information flow towards the capital flow.

  3. The project has ended the glorious era of intermediary institutions. The project has actual business, which is also fundamental for maintaining its business model after issuing coins. The project itself is the largest and most standardized intermediary institution in the market.

However, a certain event proved that information flow platforms face numerous difficulties in exploring more tokenization attempts beyond airdrops, staking, and listings. A certain project can continue to split small caps, but the information flow platform is still severely restricted.

As for InfoFi and certain new features in the industry or business lines, they have not created new frontiers beyond the core functionalities, and I will not elaborate further on this.

In summary, the project successfully facilitated the internal competition among KOLs, occupying an indispensable part of the market. Even if a large exchange comes to compete for the market, the effect will not be very good. It’s still the same saying, the fair market value is difficult to measure, and no exchange's social features have surpassed Crypto Assets Twitter; this is clear evidence.

Deconstructing Kaito: Twitter InfoFi's "standard component"?

Conclusion

What is the next step for the project?

In simple terms, it is a product that can bridge the flow of information and the flow of funds, directly generating transactions based on the flow of information.

The complexity is that crypto users do not recognize the value of information flow; liquidity will only follow the path of liquidity.

Deconstructing Kaito: Twitter InfoFi's "standard component"?

View Original
This page may contain third-party content, which is provided for information purposes only (not representations/warranties) and should not be considered as an endorsement of its views by Gate, nor as financial or professional advice. See Disclaimer for details.
  • Reward
  • 4
  • Share
Comment
0/400
BearMarketSurvivorvip
· 07-07 14:25
Be Played for Suckers has come up with a new trick.
View OriginalReply0
ImpermanentPhilosophervip
· 07-07 14:25
The ultimate form of suckers, if you can't take advantage of it, you will be taken advantage of.
View OriginalReply0
OPsychologyvip
· 07-07 14:18
Blockchain Thinker Pure Play Coin No Project Hate Being Played for Suckers
View OriginalReply0
HashBardvip
· 07-07 14:02
just another ponzi scheme dressed up as "innovation" smh... same old ct drama
Reply0
Trade Crypto Anywhere Anytime
qrCode
Scan to download Gate app
Community
English
  • 简体中文
  • English
  • Tiếng Việt
  • 繁體中文
  • Español
  • Русский
  • Français (Afrique)
  • Português (Portugal)
  • Bahasa Indonesia
  • 日本語
  • بالعربية
  • Українська
  • Português (Brasil)