InfoFi's narrative collapses, leading to the shutdown of related products by Kaito, Cookie, and others

Author: Gu Yu, ChainCatcher

In the early morning of January 16, Beijing time, the crypto industry was once again shaken. The once-hot InfoFi narrative collapsed in an instant, with Kaito, Cookie, and others announcing the shutdown of InfoFi-related products and attempting to pivot, causing token prices to plummet nearly 20% at one point.

This all stemmed from a tweet by Nikita Bier, head of the X product. Nikita Bier stated that the team is revising the developer API policy and will no longer allow any applications that reward users for posting on the X platform (such as "infofi"). This has led to an influx of AI spam and reply junk on the platform.

"We have revoked API access for these applications, so your X experience should start to improve soon (once the bots realize they are no longer being rewarded)," Nikita Bier said.

Since most InfoFi projects rely on the X product API to obtain user tweet data and determine reward schemes, once the API is discontinued, the vast majority of content from these products will stop being updated, losing their foundation.

An hour after the announcement, major InfoFi projects like Kaito and Cookie quickly released response statements on their official Twitter, indicating that they had anticipated and prepared for this situation. Let's take a look at how they specifically responded.

Kaito: Shifting Focus Beyond Crypto

Kaito stated that in response to the large amount of spam tweets, the project attempted stricter eligibility reviews, higher leaderboard thresholds, social + on-chain filtering mechanisms, and different incentive mechanisms. However, due to changes in the X algorithm across the platform and varying thresholds for other InfoFi projects, the issues of low-quality and spam content remain prevalent throughout the cryptocurrency space.

After discussions with the X team, both parties agreed that a completely permissionless distribution system is no longer feasible and does not meet the needs of high-quality brands, serious content creators, or X as a platform.

Next, Kaito will shut down Yaps and the incentive leaderboard, focusing on launching Kaito Studio, which will be closer to a traditional tiered marketing platform where brands can selectively collaborate with creators based on established standards and clear project scopes.

Kaito founder Yu Hu stated that he has been busy developing Kaito Studio over the past few months, which is why the project has been relatively low-key on social media and announcements, rarely mentioning project development and strategic adjustments. Additionally, he has personally met with some large brands outside the cryptocurrency space to learn from the successes of traditional industries.

"We should not build and create for cryptocurrency anymore, but rather for a broader world," Yu Hu believes that 2026 will be the year Kaito surpasses CT as its main platform and transcends cryptocurrency as its primary vertical.

Cookie: Launching Real-Time Crypto Market Wallet Tool

Cookie stated that the decision to shut down the Snaps platform and all active creator activities was a difficult and sudden one, but it was necessary to maintain the integrity of Cookie's data layer and products.

After discussions with the X team regarding its API and X usage policies, Cookie decided to immediately shut down Snaps and all ongoing activities.

However, the project still holds hope for the future of the Snaps product. "Currently, we are actively negotiating with X to determine whether Snaps can continue to operate in a new form." Cookie believes, "We have always been confident that we fully comply with all of X's rules and policies. We will wait for X to provide confirmation and guidance on whether creator activities (such as Snaps) can operate in any form in the future."

At the same time, Cookie also proposed future product iteration plans, "For the past six months, we have been developing Cookie Pro, a real-time market intelligence tool for the cryptocurrency space, which is scheduled for official launch in the first quarter."

The Fall of InfoFi?

It is undeniable that InfoFi has brought much vitality and change to the industry in recent years. It combined information and finance, creating a mechanism to assess user contributions based on the attention generated by user content (such as views, comments, and shares) and linking it to token rewards.

Essentially, InfoFi transformed attention from an abstract concept into quantifiable and tradable data, shifting user participation from simple content consumption to productive activities, allowing project teams to more specifically reward their content contributors.

However, when attention becomes the standard for rewards, the purpose of creating content has now shifted from providing information or encouraging meaningful participation to merely seeking rewards. Generative AI has made content creation easier, leading to the rapid spread of bulk content lacking real information or insights.

Several key team members at X have mentioned the decline in Twitter content quality brought about by InfoFi, which is why projects like Kaito have attempted to optimize their algorithm solutions, but did not expect X to directly block this path at its roots.

It is worth noting that not all InfoFi projects incentivize users to post for rewards. For example, projects like xHunt and Ethos rely on the X API primarily to obtain tweet data for scoring and other operations. The impact of this adjustment in X API policy on these projects remains to be seen and requires further observation.

Additionally, some types of InfoFi projects primarily focus on monetizing industry hot narratives, such as Noise and Narrative, which are expected to be minimally affected.

InfoFi Project List Source: RootData

Now that the InfoFi narrative is rapidly collapsing, the attention economy and creator economy remain important focal points in the entire internet industry. In the future, InfoFi may reappear before the public in new forms and concepts.