Kaito AI and Yaps: Tokenized Attention is Changing Crypto

What Is Kaito AI?

Founded in 2022 by Yu Hu, a former Citadel quantitative trader, Kaito AI tackles the crypto world's information overload problem. This Seattle-based platform indexes thousands of crypto sources using AI and large language models.

The technology processes content from social media, governance forums, research papers, podcasts, and transcripts, organizing it to help users make data-driven decisions.

Investors have shown strong confidence in Kaito's approach. The company raised $10.8 million across two funding rounds, securing $5.3 million in a seed round led by Dragonfly Capital in August 2023, and $5.5 million in a Series A round led by Superscript and Spartan Group in June 2023.

These investments pushed Kaito's valuation to $87.5 million, with additional backing from Sequoia Capital China and Jane Street.

Kaito's ecosystem consists of three core offerings:

1. Kaito Pro: A data consolidation tool with AI-driven analytics for investors and traders
2. Kaito Yaps: A tokenized attention system that rewards users for sharing valuable crypto insights
3. Kaito Connect: An AI-powered InfoFi network that distributes attention and capital transparently

The Yaps Program: Tokenizing Attention

The Yaps program introduces a "Yap-to-Earn" model that rewards valuable crypto content on X (formerly Twitter). Moving beyond basic metrics like likes or retweets, Yaps employs AI to evaluate contributions across three dimensions:

Proof-of-Work

The system tracks the volume of relevant content a user creates. However, quantity alone isn't enough—the content must be crypto-focused and substantive.

Proof-of-Exchange

This measures engagement, but with a critical difference: the system weighs interactions based on the reputation of those engaging. Meaningful exchanges with respected community members carry more weight than superficial interactions.

Proof-of-Insight

The AI evaluates content for originality, relevance, and information value. This dimension rewards users who contribute genuinely insightful analysis rather than simply repeating known information.

The Yaps system is specifically designed to resist manipulation. Its algorithms can detect and discount spam, bot activity, and other low-quality engagement tactics, ensuring that users who provide genuine value receive appropriate recognition.

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Recent updates to the Yaps program show Kaito's commitment to continuous improvement:

• On March 11, 2025, Kaito released a public API for real-time Yaps scores, enabling developers to build applications using this data
• On April 9, 2025, the platform added a "report button" allowing community members to flag fake accounts or content farmers

Yapper Leaderboards and Launchpad

Yapper Leaderboards serve as public dashboards that rank users based on their engagement and influence within specific crypto communities. These leaderboards cover various categories:

• General Crypto Twitter influencers
• Crypto x AI specialists
• AI Agents experts
• Project-specific leaderboards for communities like Berachain and Monad

For crypto projects and brands, these leaderboards provide valuable transparency, helping identify authentic key opinion leaders rather than those with artificially inflated follower counts.

The Yapper Launchpad extends this system by creating a community-driven platform where users can vote on which projects should receive dedicated leaderboards. Voting takes place through Yaps points, Smart Followers status, or Genesis NFT ownership, giving community members multiple pathways to influence platform development.

This system supports both pre-token generation event (TGE) projects and established post-TGE communities, providing a pathway to increased visibility and engagement.

On March 28, 2025, Kaito introduced the Rewards Station as part of its upcoming Kaito Earn platform. This feature allows users to discover rewards tied to Yapper Leaderboards. Weekly "Yapper Payouts" distribute $5,000 in $sKAITO tokens to the top 50 Yappers and top 50 Emerging Yappers, creating direct financial incentives for quality contributions.

$KAITO Token and Airdrop

The $KAITO token functions as the native currency of the Kaito ecosystem, enabling several key activities:

• Transaction processing within the platform
• Staking for enhanced rewards and features
• Governance voting on protocol updates
• Access to premium features like real-time trend analysis

The token's distribution prioritizes community involvement, with 56.67% of the total 1 billion supply allocated to community and ecosystem development. Of this, 10% was reserved for initial claims by Yappers, Genesis NFT holders, and partners.

Eligibility for token distributions considered several factors:

• Active participation in the Yaps program
• Long-term loyalty to the platform
• Involvement in governance activities
• On-chain reputation metrics

The official airdrop process began with snapshots taken on February 17-18, 2025, for Yaps participants and Genesis NFT holders. Users could claim their tokens until March 22, 2025. Beyond this initial distribution, Kaito reserved an additional 7.5% of tokens for long-term creator incentives.

Kaito's airdrop gained additional exposure through Binance, which included $KAITO in its 9th HODLer Airdrop program. This initiative rewarded BNB holders who had subscribed to Simple Earn products between February 6-10, 2025.

The platform's 1,500 Genesis NFTs, originally minted at 0.1 ETH each, play a strategic role in the ecosystem. These NFTs enhance airdrop allocation weight and provide increased governance voting power. They have proven popular in the secondary market, trading on OpenSea with a floor price of approximately 1.9 ETH in early April 2025.

Ecosystem and Partnerships

Kaito has established strategic partnerships with several prominent crypto projects to expand its Yapper Leaderboards and reward systems:

• Berachain: Created dedicated leaderboards for the Berachain community
• MegaETH: Integrated with Kaito's analytics systems
• Story Protocol: Developed content-focused incentive structures
• MANTRA Chain: Recently added to the Yapper ecosystem
• Kaia Chain: Newest addition to project-specific leaderboards

One notable partnership with Quai Network allocated 6 million Quai tokens specifically for leaderboard participants, demonstrating the tangible value these collaborations can generate.

Beyond project-specific partnerships, Kaito's API enables developers to integrate the platform's real-time crypto data into their own ecosystems. This capability serves project teams looking for community analytics, research organizations needing comprehensive data aggregation, and exchanges aiming to enhance their information services with Kaito's insights.

Kaito's Impact on the Crypto Ecosystem

As a pioneer in InfoFi (Information Finance), Kaito combines the functionality of a crypto-focused search engine and financial terminal. This addresses key challenges in the crypto space: information overload, quality recognition, and creator economics.

The platform's AI filters the massive amount of crypto content generated across disparate sources, helping users find valuable insights among the noise. Unlike traditional social metrics that often fail to identify genuine expertise, Yaps creates an alternative reputation system that rewards substantive contributions rather than mere popularity. By distributing tokens based on informational value, Kaito creates a direct financial link between quality content creation and tangible rewards.

Community sentiment around Kaito remains largely positive, with active participation on X. Users regularly share strategies to maximize their Yaps through quality interactions rather than volume alone, indicating that the system is achieving its goal of incentivizing valuable content.

Future Prospects and Challenges

As Kaito continues to develop its ecosystem, several key initiatives and challenges stand out. The forthcoming Kaito Earn platform will expand upon the current Rewards Station, potentially offering additional incentive mechanisms beyond token distribution, while enhanced API integrations may enable deeper incorporation of Kaito's data into third-party applications.

Despite its innovative approach, Kaito faces potential hurdles. The Yaps program currently relies heavily on X as its primary content source, creating dependency risks if the platform changes its policies or access capabilities. Additionally, maintaining transparency and preventing unintended biases in its AI-based ranking system will require ongoing refinement of Kaito's algorithms.

According to its roadmap, Kaito aims to scale its InfoFi applications while potentially expanding into additional SocialFi (Social Finance) services, creating a more comprehensive Web3 information ecosystem.

Conclusion

Kaito AI transforms how Web3 communities organize and value knowledge through its innovative approach to crypto information. By combining AI analytics with token incentives, the platform aligns quality content with tangible rewards, solving the dual problems of information overload and quality verification.

The Yaps program reimagines attention metrics for crypto, using a sophisticated evaluation system instead of simplistic engagement counts. This model could eventually influence information systems beyond the crypto sphere.

For crypto enthusiasts and content creators, Yaps offers a clear path to build reputation and earn rewards while adding value to the community's collective intelligence.