Kaito

Kaito is an AI-powered information finance (InfoFi) platform founded in 2022 by Yu Hu, a former portfolio manager at Citadel and analyst at Deutsche Bank. The platform aggregates fragmented Web3 data — social media discussions, governance forums, research papers, podcasts, and conference transcripts — and applies large language models fine-tuned for cryptocurrency to transform that raw signal into structured market intelligence.

The Problem Kaito Solves

Web3 suffers from information overload: relevant signals scatter across Crypto Twitter, Discord servers, governance forums, Substack newsletters, and research reports. Kaito indexes thousands of these sources simultaneously, applies AI-driven filtering to remove noise and spam, and surfaces meaningful trends, narratives, and sentiment shifts in real time. The central organizing concept is mindshare — a quantified measure of how much attention and conversation a given project, narrative, or asset is capturing at any moment. Kaito tracks which topics are gaining or losing mindshare, giving users a leading indicator of sentiment before it appears in price.

Core Products

Kaito Pro is the flagship research tool aimed at institutional and professional users. It features MetaSearch, which lets users query aggregated Web3 sources in natural language, alongside customizable smart alerts, sentiment dashboards, and AI-generated summaries of major crypto events. Users can monitor token narratives, track competitor projects, and build curated Smart Following feeds of the most credible voices in any sector.

Mindshare Arena provides leaderboards ranking the most influential voices and projects across crypto, AI, and stock trading. Rankings filter by sector, region, and time period (7D, 30D, 3M) and show both absolute mindshare and relative change, helping users distinguish genuine community credibility from superficial reach.

Kaito Studio, introduced in early 2026, is a creator-brand marketplace connecting content creators with Web3 projects that want targeted, authentic promotion. Creators apply for campaigns, review brand requirements, and receive token rewards upon selection. Studio replaced the earlier Yap-to-Earn model after X (formerly Twitter) announced in January 2026 that it would no longer allow platforms that financially reward users for posting. The pivot to Studio added curation and selectivity to what had been an open-ended reward program.

Attention Markets, launched in February 2026 through a partnership with Polymarket, lets users place prediction-market bets on the mindshare and sentiment of brands, trends, and public figures. The product turns Kaito attention data into a directly tradeable financial instrument — one of the more concrete implementations of the InfoFi thesis. Capital Launchpad supports token launches and project fundraising within the Kaito ecosystem.

The Yaps System

Before its January 2026 sunset, Yaps were Kaito's on-chain reward points distributed daily to content creators who generated quality crypto discussions. Unlike engagement systems that reward raw impressions or follower counts, Yaps weighted interactions from Smart Followers — developers, respected ecosystem contributors, and credible voices identified by Kaito's algorithm. Projects such as Berachain and Story Protocol used Yaps allocations to direct airdrop distributions toward recognized community contributors. The system became influential in the 2024-2025 airdrop meta, though it attracted sustained criticism for incentivizing low-quality engagement farming. Its shutdown was driven by X platform policy rather than internal failure.

KAITO Token

The KAITO token launched on February 20, 2025, distributed via airdrop to top Yaps earners and Binance Hodlers. The token is deployed on Base (Ethereum L2), not on Solana. Total supply is capped at 1 billion KAITO, with vesting running through January 2029. Token distribution at launch: Ecosystem and network growth 32.2%, Core contributors and development 25%, Foundation reserve 10%, Community airdrop 10%, Content creator incentives 7.5%, Initial backers 8.3%, Binance Hodlers program 2%, Liquidity and market making 5%. KAITO token utilities include governance participation, access to premium platform tiers, staking rewards, and ecosystem incentive programs. Approximately 241 million tokens were in circulation as of mid-2026.

Team and Funding

Kaito was founded by Yu Hu, who brings a traditional finance background from roles at Citadel and Deutsche Bank. The company has raised $10.8 million across two rounds, backed by Dragonfly Capital, Sequoia Capital China, The Spartan Group, and Jane Street. The company's post-funding valuation reached approximately $87.5 million. No public smart contract audits or security reports have been identified for Kaito's platform or token contracts. Kaito operates primarily as an off-chain data aggregation and AI analytics layer; the KAITO token's on-chain components are deployed on Base.

Solana Ecosystem Fit

Kaito is not a Solana-native protocol — its token runs on Base and its infrastructure is chain-agnostic. The Solana ecosystem is nonetheless a significant focus within Kaito's data coverage. Kaito tracked Solana mindshare closely during the 2024-2025 bull cycle, published AI-generated summaries of Solana Breakpoint 2024 covering more than 75 product launches, and Solana projects regularly appear in Mindshare Arena leaderboards. For Solana ecosystem participants — validators, DeFi protocols, traders, and researchers — Kaito Pro provides tools to monitor narrative trends and track competitor mindshare, while Studio offers a channel for reaching crypto-native audiences through curated creator campaigns.