Kaito, trapping KOLs within the algorithm
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Kaito, trapping KOLs within the algorithm
The community seems to have lost patience first.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsWritten by: Fairy, ChainCatcher
Is it "Yap-to-Earn," or "Earn-to-Leave"?
In the crypto world, "attention" is gradually becoming an asset that can be priced. Kaito is a rising star in the InfoFi space, emerging against this backdrop. Backed by top-tier capital such as Dragonfly and Sequoia, Kaito was once seen as an innovator in "information financialization."
Yet, just months later, growing voices are questioning its algorithmic mechanisms and ecological impact. Kaito aims to capture users' attention with AI algorithms, but currently, the community appears to have lost patience first.
Is the creator ecosystem being destroyed?
The issue of low-quality content has been controversial since Kaito launched its "Yap-to-Earn" mechanism. X is flooded with posts featuring identical styles labeled as "in-depth industry analysis"—ostensibly filled with professional jargon and structured breakdowns, yet in reality hollow, superficial in engagement, inefficient, repetitive, and created solely for profit.
Community member @0xcryptoHowe described Kaito's dissemination model as the "crypto version of elevator advertising." He pointed out: "Kaito's long-tail traffic effect is essentially like elevator ads—repeating content endlessly within a closed space, pushed in rotation at different times." For audiences, this may indeed be a fast method for memorization and exposure, but problems follow: when platforms are dominated by "homogeneous content" and influencers are algorithmically driven to repeatedly produce, an information feedback loop forms—akin to being trapped in a sealed elevator endlessly playing ads, making it hard to access truly valuable new content.
Meanwhile, many have accused Kaito of exploiting mid-tier creators' traffic. Crypto KOL @connectfarm1 noted that some mid-tier accounts, whose individual posts were originally worth at least 500U, have willingly accepted payouts far below market value due to Kaito. This strategy not only suppresses the true value of content in practice but also forces some creators to express only 50% or less of their actual capabilities.
Kaito may be narrowing the criteria for evaluating content creation, locking creators into a system driven by "algorithms" and "scores." As community user @0xBeliever put it: "There are many standards for evaluating KOLs, but Kaito has made them somewhat singular."
Team missteps
Beyond mechanism disputes, Kaito’s team has recently encountered operational hiccups.
On March 16, Kaito AI and its founder Yu Hu’s X accounts were hacked. Team member Sandra posted on X stating, "The attacker chose to strike during the late night in Yu Hu’s timezone, taking control while he was asleep."
Then on April 27, founder Yu Hu announced that the platform accidentally backfilled the new algorithm over the past 12 months, causing users to see longer time windows, while frontend data became incomplete.
Though neither incident caused serious consequences, these consecutive minor flaws have raised concerns about its stability.
The controversy over a "relationship-heavy" algorithm
Kaito’s main selling point is its AI-powered content scoring algorithm, which claims to identify valuable Web3 content. However, as users dive deeper, the algorithm has repeatedly sparked controversy.
User @Jessethecook69 climbed to ninth globally and first among Chinese-language users on the Kaito Yapper leaderboard within just 24 hours, based on only three borderline-content posts. This inevitably raises questions: does this algorithm truly filter valuable information?
Many users point out that Kaito places low weight on views, prioritizing instead interactions between high-influence accounts. Worse, parts of the ICT (Inner Crypto Twitter) have started forming cliques, further amplifying this algorithmic bias.
Crypto KOL @sky_gpt bluntly stated that Kaito’s algorithm is fundamentally designed to dominate the KOL institutional market, severely damaging the ecosystem for ordinary creators. He noted that his in-depth post reaching 30w impressions received nearly the same score as a 2k-promoted advertisement bought by a project, while non-Kaito-related content is systematically suppressed by the algorithm. "The top 50 KOLs on the leaderboard are raking it in," he wrote, "Kaito is cutting off pathways for newcomers to rise."
When newcomers are trapped beneath an invisible algorithmic ceiling, and creators are forced to cater to algorithmic preferences, we must ask: is an AI-driven content platform reshaping information order—or merely replicating existing power structures?
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