KAITO from Yaps to Kaito Studio: How is attention transformed into tradable assets and a prediction market?

The encryption industry has never lacked new concepts, but being able to elevate "attention" from vague social media metrics to a quantifiable, tradable on-chain asset system puts Kaito AI at the forefront.

On January 15, 2026, the Yaps points program, once popular on crypto Twitter, officially ended. Subsequently, Kaito Studio’s creator economy marketplace and Attention Markets’ attention prediction markets were launched one after another. A core question then emerged: as the era of “posting mining” ends, has the era of meticulous “attention pricing” truly arrived?

Yaps exits, two major product tracks take over

On January 15, 2026, Kaito AI shut down the Yaps points system, which had been running for nearly two years. This product, which once motivated thousands of KOLs and content creators to compete daily in posting crypto tweets to earn points, officially became history.

Replacing it are two distinctly positioned products:

Kaito Studio: A tiered creator and brand matching marketplace covering X, YouTube, and TikTok, officially launched in beta on March 6, 2026, with the first 16 partners already onboarded.

Attention Markets: A new product launched by Kaito AI in collaboration with prediction market platform Polymarket, officially announced on February 10, 2026. This market allows users to bet on the rise or fall of “mental share” for specific topics, brands, or personalities, with results determined by Kaito AI’s real-time data analysis. It is the crypto industry’s first prediction market based on “attention” as the underlying asset.

As of May 28, 2026, the KAITO token traded at $0.4688 on Gate, down 6.73% in the past 24 hours, up 11.28% over the past 30 days, and down 78.38% compared to a year ago.

From social media experiments to financial infrastructure

Kaito AI’s development path can be clearly divided into three stages.

Stage One: Data Infrastructure (2023–2024)

The team built a comprehensive index and semantic analysis system for crypto content across the entire web, with the core product being the Mindshare dashboard—a data tool tracking the share of projects, topics, and KOL discussions on crypto Twitter. This tool later became an important reference for hedge funds and traders monitoring market sentiment, forming the data foundation for all subsequent products.

Stage Two: Behavioral Incentives (2024–January 2026)

Yaps points program launched. Users earned points by posting high-quality crypto content, with the system weighting interactions and topic relevance. During its operation, monthly active Yappers exceeded 200k, with a community size of 157k Yappers, but it also faced criticism over “scalping” and declining content quality.

Stage Three: Financialization (February 2026–present)

Yaps shut down, and Kaito Studio and Attention Markets were launched successively. The former directly connects creator influence to brand budgets, while the latter converts Mindshare metrics into tradable prediction market contracts. The power to price attention is shifting from platform algorithms to market mechanisms.

Public information shows that Kaito AI has achieved annual revenue, with investors including Dragonfly, Sequoia China, and Spartan Group.

Operational ledger of the two product lines

To understand this transformation’s essence, it’s necessary to dissect the data logic behind both products.

Kaito Studio’s creator economy model

This marketplace uses a tiered screening mechanism: creators are classified into different levels based on historical Mindshare data, content quality scores, and genuine fan engagement. Brands can select partners accordingly. Unlike the “everyone can mine” approach of the Yaps era, Studio’s model is fundamentally a reputation filtering system—only creators consistently producing high-quality content can secure brand deals.

The first batch of test brands includes several top Layer 1 and DeFi protocols. Based on traditional social media marketing pricing standards, a single promotional tweet from a crypto KOL typically costs between $500 and $5,000, with Kaito Studio taking a platform service fee from this. This means the revenue ceiling depends on how much brand budgets shift from traditional agencies and KOL brokers onto the chain.

Attention Markets’ trading mechanism

This is a more noteworthy innovation. Users can bet on the direction of Mindshare changes for specific topics. For example, betting whether “EigenLayer” discussions will increase or decrease over the next week. Settlement data comes entirely from Kaito AI’s real-time index, with no human judges involved.

The core variable in this design is: as a “attention indicator,” Mindshare exhibits high short-term volatility. A highly interactive tweet, a security incident, or a sharp token price swing can cause pulse-like changes in a topic’s discussion share. This makes Attention Markets naturally suited for short-term speculation. In fact, before the official announcement, in November 2025, Polymarket launched two test markets supported by Kaito data, including a market on “Polymarket’s own mental share ranking by March 31, 2026,” which attracted over $1.3 million in trading volume, demonstrating initial demand during the proof-of-concept phase.

However, this mechanism also faces risks of “pump-and-dump” manipulation—large traders could pay KOLs to post heavily, artificially boosting a topic’s Mindshare and profiting in prediction markets.

About the KAITO token unlock schedule

On May 20, 2026, 17.6 million KAITO tokens will enter circulation, worth approximately $8.51 million. As of May 28, the unlock has occurred, increasing the circulating supply. Looking at the 30-day price trend, market volatility increased around May 20, but overall, there was an 11.28% rise over 30 days. The actual impact of the unlock has been gradually absorbed by the market, but this does not mean selling pressure is fully released—some unlocked tokens may still be traded OTC or awaiting sale. Ongoing on-chain transfer activity over the coming weeks warrants close monitoring.

Supporters, skeptics, and the silent majority

Three main narratives have formed around Kaito’s strategic shift.

Supporters: On-chain pricing of attention assets is an inevitable trend

This camp believes that the attention economy of Web2 was monopolized—Meta and Google earned most ad revenue, while content creators only received crumbs. Kaito Studio and Attention Markets offer a “chain-anchored” solution: brand budgets directly reach creators, and attention metrics can be openly traded and hedged.

Skeptics: User loss post-Yaps is happening

Opponents focus on a key issue: after Yaps shut down, why would users stay? During Yaps, users were motivated to post to earn exchangeable tokens. Now, Studio only serves top creators, and Attention Markets targets traders rather than content producers. Many mid- and tail-end participants lose direct economic incentives to remain. The platform’s daily active users have declined significantly since Yaps closed, though official retention data has not been disclosed.

Onlookers: The tug-of-war between token unlock pressures and narrative support

The third view holds that in the short term, KAITO’s price movement depends more on the “new narrative vs. unlock selling pressure” game. Attention Markets is a promising long-term direction, but the product is still early-stage. Whether it can generate meaningful on-chain trading volume requires at least a full market cycle for validation. Meanwhile, the supply increase from unlocks exerts real selling pressure.

Industry impact analysis: the changing valuation anchor of attention

If we extend the timeline, Kaito’s product shift could produce three levels of industry influence.

First, in the creator economy track, it offers a “de-platformed” revenue model. Traditionally, creator income depends heavily on X platform’s ad revenue sharing or private brand deals. Kaito Studio’s on-chain, auditable matchmaking reduces information asymmetry. If scaled, it could pressure Web2 platforms to adjust creator revenue splits.

Second, in prediction markets, it opens up “non-event” assets. Platforms like Polymarket mainly traded in elections, rate cuts, airdrops—“one-off” events. Mindshare prediction markets represent a continuous data flow trading, more akin to macroeconomic “sentiment index derivatives.” If validated, this could significantly expand the scope of prediction market categories.

Third, for the KAITO token itself, its role is shifting from “points exchange medium” to “ecosystem value capture layer.” Service fees from Studio, settlement and data API payments from Attention Markets could become use cases for KAITO tokens. But this transition takes time and faces competition from stablecoins and other general-purpose tokens.

Conclusion

Yaps’ end is not Kaito’s retreat but the beginning of a larger experiment. From point-driven behavioral incentives to market-driven attention pricing, Kaito is trying to answer a fundamental question in crypto: how much is attention really worth, and who should set its price?

The answer provided by Kaito Studio and Attention Markets is: market-determined. Whether this is correct depends not on the narrative itself but on whether brands are willing to keep paying, traders are willing to bet with real money, and how many of those once-active users will find their place in this new game.

This is an ongoing story. For those interested in creator economies, prediction markets, and attention assetization, every step Kaito takes warrants close attention.