Kaito AI (KAITO) Quickly Rose to Prominence With Its “Yap-to-Earn” Model

input: Kaito AI quickly rose to prominence with its “Yap-to-Earn” model, attracting thousands of users who earned significant rewards through airdrop campaigns.

Kaito AI has quickly risen to prominence with its “Yap-to-Earn” model, attracting thousands of users who earned significant rewards through airdrop campaigns. However, following the launch of its KAITO token, the project faced criticism regarding the token’s real-world utility.

As part of its efforts to rebuild its ecosystem and restore community trust, Kaito is now undergoing major structural changes.

“Yap-to-Earn”: Turning Posts Into Real Money

Launched in December 2024, Kaito AI’s “Yap-to-Earn” program has seen a surge in engagement across Platform X. Users simply need to share content related to partner projects on social media to accumulate Yap Points, which then make them eligible for airdrops from partners like Initia, Wayfinder, and others.

Kaito’s scoring system uses AI-driven analysis to evaluate content quality, user engagement, and network influence, ensuring that meaningful contributions are properly rewarded. Yap points rely on three key factors: how many posts you make, how much interaction you get (likes, comments, reposts), and how credible you are within the network.

Many users have reported substantial earnings through the program. One standout case is from the project Wayfarer (PROMPT), users who reached the “emerging yapper” tier (100+ posts) and shared relevant content were rewarded with 5,000–20,000 $PROMPT tokens, which is more than $1,500 USD.

“Thank you Kaito, thank you Wayfarer, thank you anonymous upper Korean,” one user humorously posted on X. They also revealed receiving 1,000 tokens from Initia simply for being an active yapper on Kaito, even without having interacted with its testnet.

Learn more: Initial Price Prediction

In the case of Morpheus (MOR), users who engaged with narrative threads and responded to community-driven prompts earned 3,000-8,000 MOR, depending on their engagement metrics. Other notable airdrop allocations for social contribution include Berachain and Story Protocol, which are considered the top Layer 1s in the crypto market.

Some early Yappers even reported receiving double-digit rewards across multiple campaigns, stacking tokens from different partner projects just by maintaining a strong on-chain presence and a consistent posting rhythm on X.

PROMPT price – Source: TradingView

Through simple “social allo” activities – sharing content on social media, users have gained access to high-quality airdrops from promising Web3 projects, highlighting the long-term potential of the Yap-to-Earn model.

Without requiring capital investment or complex interactions like traditional testnets, Kaito is creating a new entry point for everyday users to earn real value from the crypto space.

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After the early success of its “Yap-to-Earn” program, the Kaito AI community had high hopes for the KAITO launch in February 2025, hoping it would complete the ecosystem. However, those hopes quickly gave way to a wave of criticism.

Many users who received the initial allocation offloaded their tokens quickly, citing a lack of immediate utility, low token value, and a widening gap between the token’s role and the ecosystem’s most rewarding activities.

The issues stem not only from the low airdrop allocation (just 10% of total supply) but also from the lack of meaningful utility tied to the token. At the time of TGE, users primarily used KAITO for staking and governance participation through Kaito Connect – an activity many saw as internal and disconnected from more lucrative opportunities like airdrops and leaderboards that mostly rewarded Yappers.

This imbalance didn’t go unnoticed: while Yappers (users who actively post on X to accumulate Yap points) received tokens from projects like Initia, Morpheus, and Wayfarer, those who staked KAITO – arguably the most committed supporters, didn’t receive any tangible benefits from simply holding the token.

“Yappers are making thousands from airdrops, but I’ve held since TGE and haven’t gotten anything,” one Discord user said.

In fact, the current system renders KAITO staking nearly pointless. If all it takes is spamming on X to qualify for airdrops, then why bother holding the token long-term?

The lack of utility and the unbalanced reward structure have made it difficult for KAITO’s price to gain sustained traction while also fueling growing skepticism around the platform’s future direction.

Read more: Kaito Introduces $KAITO Token to Revolutionize Attention Economy

This has prompted the Kaito team to accelerate a major update to Kaito Connect, shifting from traditional voting mechanics to a new “alignment signals” model, combining Yap points and sKAITO to rebalance