infofi

📅 January 15 | Social Networks
For years, X was the epicenter of the global crypto narrative: announcements, rumors, trends, and tokens were born and died at the pace of the timeline. But that symbiotic relationship has just abruptly ended. The social network, formerly known as Twitter, has decided to close the door on a model that had been quietly expanding: applications that reward users for posting content, a practice that gave rise to the rise of so-called InfoFi.

📖X confirmed this week that it is reviewing and tightening its API policies for developers, explicitly prohibiting applications that pay or reward users for generating posts on the platform. Nikita Bier, X's product lead, was direct in stating that API access has already been revoked for these types of apps, noting that the user experience should "improve" once bots stop receiving payments for interacting.
The announcement had an immediate impact on the market. KAITO, the native token of the InfoFi Kaito network, fell by more than 10% after the announcement, later extending its losses to nearly 14.5%.
At the time of publication, the token was trading around $0.59, with a market capitalization of approximately $140 million and a fully diluted valuation of approximately $586 million. These figures stand in stark contrast to its peak of nearly $2 billion FDV, reached shortly after its initial airdrop in February 2025.
Kaito had positioned itself as a social analytics layer that aggregated posts from influential accounts within the crypto ecosystem on X, identifying which narratives were gaining traction in real time. However, this model relied heavily on financial incentives to encourage engagement, a practice that, according to X, resulted in a flood of spam, automated responses, and low-quality AI-generated content.

Topic Opinion:
The InfoFi model promised to democratize information and monetize attention, but it ended up amplifying the worst possible incentives. When content exists only because it pays, it ceases to inform and begins to pollute. X didn't kill InfoFi because of ideology, but because of pragmatism: protecting its platform.
💬 Do you think InfoFi can reinvent itself outside of X?

Leave your comment...
#KAITO #InfoFi #crypto #X #CryptoNews $KAITO

And honestly, it was always heading in this direction.

When Nikita Bier announced major changes to API guidelines, many treated it as just another platform update.
It wasn’t.

It was a signal.

Shortly after, platforms like KaitoAI and Cookie3 began sunsetting their InfoFi products. On the surface, these looked like isolated decisions. In reality, they revealed a structural flaw that had been ignored for far too long.

InfoFi didn’t fail because of timing.
It failed because of design.

The Fundamental Flaw in InfoFi

At its core, InfoFi rewarded output, not insight.

The system optimized for volume: more posts, more impressions, more automated content. Thoughtful analysis, credibility, and long-term trust were treated as optional extras. AI-generated noise quickly crowded out human judgment. Quantity eclipsed quality.

Many projects were sold the promise that InfoFi would “solve distribution.”
What they actually received was a mirage: inflated reach with minimal signal.

Impressions rose.
Understanding didn’t.

And that imbalance mattered.

The Lemons Market Effect

Over time, InfoFi turned into a classic lemons market.

Below-average creators competed aggressively for the same incentives, while high-signal voices stayed away entirely. The best creators had too much reputational risk to participate in a system that didn’t value credibility or accountability.

Why trade long-term trust for short-term points?

Why attach your name to a mechanism that rewards noise?

That’s the reality many serious builders recognized early—and quietly exited.

Attention Is Not an Ecosystem

Here’s the uncomfortable truth:

Impressions do not build ecosystems.
Conversions do.
Understanding does.
Participation does.

InfoFi attempted to financialize attention without anchoring it to action. As a result, content floated freely—untethered from users, identity, or real economic behavior.

And without those anchors, attention decays fast.

What Comes After InfoFi?

Social and finance aren’t disappearing.
They’re evolving.

This is where Binance Square becomes especially important.

Instead of gamifying noise, Binance Square connects content to real users, real identities, and real financial actions. Posts aren’t abstract signals—they exist inside an ecosystem people actively use. Discovery is contextual. Engagement is actionable. Distribution has consequences.

Content doesn’t just circulate.
It lands.

CreatorPad and the Shift Toward Alignment

Then there’s CreatorPad—which feels like a deliberate rejection of the InfoFi model.

Rather than extracting value from creators, it provides infrastructure:
tools to build communities, test ideas, and grow alongside users—not at their expense.

No race to the bottom.
No incentive to spam.
No artificial engagement games.

Just alignment between creators, platforms, and participants.

The Blueprint for Super Apps

This is how Super Apps actually form:

Social discovery
Trust and identity
Financial rails
Distribution with accountability

All integrated. All reinforcing each other.

InfoFi tried to turn attention into a commodity.

Binance Square is organizing it.

The New Edge

Opportunities no longer come from shouting louder.
They come from being positioned correctly—inside ecosystems where participation matters and credibility compounds.

#Binance #BinanceSquare #InfoFi

The revised X API policy has significant implications for crypto projects that rely on social engagement incentives, particularly projects such as Kaito AI and Cookies DAO, which operate within the #InfoFi (Information Finance) or #SocialFi ecosystem.
These projects typically reward users with tokens or points for:
Posting threadsReplying to tweetsSharing insights or summariesIncreasing visibility of crypto narratives on X
Because X now prohibits apps that financially incentivize posting, these models face serious challenges.
Positive Impacts on Crypto Projects
Shift Toward Higher-Quality Research Projects like Kaito AI may refocus from mass posting incentives toward curated, high-signal crypto intelligence.
Reduced Spam Association Removing paid replies helps projects avoid being labeled as “spam farms” or bot-driven ecosystems.
Better Long-Term Credibility Projects that survive this shift may gain stronger trust from:
InvestorsInstitutionsSerious crypto researchers
Encouragement to Build Independent Platforms Projects may invest more in:
Own dashboardsOn-chain reputation systemsDiscord, Telegram, or web-based engagement.

Negative Impacts on Crypto Projects
Disrupted Token Incentive Models Many InfoFi tokens rely on X engagement as the main value driver. Removing this breaks the core loop.
Reduced User Participation Users who joined mainly for token rewards may leave, causing:
Lower activityReduced community growthToken Value Pressure If engagement drops, token demand and perceived utility may decline.
Increased Regulatory & Platform Risk Awareness Projects are reminded that:
“If your protocol depends on one centralized platform, you don’t own your future.”
Strategic Implications for Kaito AI & Cookies DAO
They may need to:
Redesign reward mechanics (quality > quantity)Use off-platform verificationIntegrate on-chain proof-of-contributionPure “post-to-earn” models are no longer sustainable on X.

Broader Crypto Industry Takeaway
This move by X highlights a structural risk in SocialFi and InfoFi projects: platform dependency. Crypto projects must align incentives with real value creation, not artificial engagement.

#KaitoAI $KAITO $COOKIE #CookieDAO