Platform X's new regulations hit InfoFi hard, Kaito announces the elimination of "Yaps," causing the token to plummet over 20% in a single day

Recently, social media giant X (formerly Twitter) took a tough stance against the growing AI spam content on its platform, a regulatory move that directly impacted the booming InfoFi (information finance) sector. As a well-known player in this field, crypto data analytics platform Kaito has officially announced that it will gradually phase out its core social incentive product “Yaps.” This news triggered a strong market reaction, with Gate行情 data showing that its native token KAITO’s price dropped over 20% within 24 hours of the announcement.

Background: Why did X platform issue a red card to “Content Mining”?

The trigger for this event was a public statement by X platform product lead Nikita Bier. Due to the surge in AI-generated spam content and reply spam, X decided to revise its developer policies, no longer allowing applications that incentivize users to post content on the platform through economic rewards (payment). This policy aims to maintain the platform’s information quality and user experience, and API (programmatic access) permissions for related applications have been revoked.

This policy adjustment precisely targets the InfoFi or commonly known as “content mining” model. This model allows users to earn tokens by generating and sharing content and information related to specific projects or brands. Kaito’s “Yaps” is a typical example of such an application: users post promotional tweets to earn rewards, which once helped it rapidly build a community with over 157,000 members.

Kaito founder Hu Yu admitted after communication with X that under the current new platform restrictions, the previous “permissionless, incentive-driven distribution model” is no longer feasible. This directly led to the banning of the large “Kaito Yapper” community on X.

Kaito’s response: from “Yaps” to “Kaito Studio” strategic transformation

Faced with irreversible regulatory changes, Kaito chose proactive transformation rather than passive waiting. The company announced it will gradually terminate “Yaps” and its incentive leaderboard, and launch a new “Kaito Studio” platform. This marks a fundamental shift in its business model:

• “Yaps” (old model): Broad, open, incentive-driven social mining. Any user can earn rewards by posting content, which easily leads to inconsistent content quality and spam risks.
• “Kaito Studio” (new model): Curated, tiered creator marketing platform. The platform will focus on facilitating collaborations between brands and carefully selected high-quality creators, providing data analytics, performance tracking, and cross-platform distribution services (such as YouTube, TikTok).

This transformation demonstrates Kaito’s commitment to building a more sustainable, higher-quality Web3 creator economy ecosystem within a compliant framework. The company emphasizes that its core data analytics products (like Kaito Pro, API) and Launchpad business will remain unaffected, and the KAITO token will continue to play an important role in the new “Studio” mode, with specific utility details to be announced later.

Kaito’s KAITO token price analysis based on Gate行情 data

The major regulatory news and product strategy adjustments quickly reflected in KAITO’s market price. According to the latest real-time data from Gate exchange, we observe the following key information:

• Current price and volatility: Kaito (KAITO) is currently priced at $0.5461. Over the past 24 hours, its price has changed by -20.75%, with a high of $0.709 and a low of $0.542. This confirms the market’s intense emotional response as it digests the sudden negative news.
• Trading volume and market attention: The trading volume over the past 24 hours reached $6.84M, indicating significant market participation and interest related to this event.
• Market cap and historical position: KAITO’s current market cap is approximately $133.12M. Its all-time high was $2.92, and the current price remains far below that peak. Recent price fluctuations are mainly driven by this event.
• Market sentiment: Considering the sharp price swings and increased trading volume, the current market sentiment can be judged as neutral to cautious. Investors are reassessing Kaito’s long-term value and growth potential under the new strategy.

This price decline can be seen as the market’s immediate re-evaluation of the sustainability of the old business model. On one hand, the shutdown of the “content mining” core product will undoubtedly impact short-term user activity and token consumption scenarios; on the other hand, the shift to “Kaito Studio” aligns with long-term compliance trends, but its success depends on whether the platform can attract quality brands and creators and build a new value loop, which will take time to verify. The deep correction in price also partly releases the risk from prior news sentiment.

Industry outlook: Where is the InfoFi track headed?

Kaito’s case is not an isolated example; it reveals systemic risks faced by the entire InfoFi or social mining sector when relying on large centralized social platforms. The tightening regulation by X may prompt other projects in this field to reconsider their operational models.

Future trends may focus on:

• Exploration of decentralized social graphs: More projects may consider building or migrating to more open and censorship-resistant decentralized social platforms like Bluesky, Farcaster.
• From “quantity” to “quality”: The simple incentivization of posting may decline, shifting toward curation, in-depth analysis, and professional content creation that can generate high-quality information (Alpha).
• Rebuilding token economic models: Projects need to design more complex and robust token economies, reducing reliance on single, policy-sensitive incentive scenarios, and increasing utility in data analysis, governance, and advanced feature access.

Conclusion

X platform’s regulatory crackdown and Kaito’s rapid transformation together offer a vivid lesson in the Web3 information track: while pursuing growth and incentives, sustainability and compliance must be prioritized. The short-term pain in KAITO token price is the market paying “tuition” for this lesson. For investors and industry observers, attention should shift to Kaito’s execution of its new strategy and its ability to rebuild ecosystem vitality under the new model. Gate will continue to provide you with the latest market dynamics and in-depth data analysis of KAITO and other frontier crypto projects.