AltcoinsMarkets
|4 min ReadX Kills InfoFi: The 5 Paths Out of Hell
Jax Morales
Senior Analyst
Published
Jan 21, 2026
The "Pay-to-Post" era is dead. It took Nikita Bier (X Product Lead) exactly one tweet on Jan 15 to dismantle the entire InfoFi (Information Finance) sector. By banning reward-based engagement apps to fight spam, X exposed the fatal flaw of "decentralized" projects relying on a centralized API.
The collapse was instant. $KAITO cratered as the ecosystem evaporated in three days. The narrative of "Mass Adoption via X" has been replaced by a brutal survival game.
The Founder's Dilemma: 5 Pivots
With the core product-market fit (PMF) destroyed, founders like Yu Hu (Kaito) face five distinct paths. Most will fail.
1. The Zombie Liquidation
The default path. Without the X API, small-cap InfoFi projects are essentially bricked. The rational move is to sell user data assets, wind down operations, and return remaining treasury to investors. Expect a wave of "soft rugs" where teams go silent.
2. The Bounty Regression (Scribble Model)
Projects can revert to the Scribble model: manual bounties.
Mechanism: Projects post grants -> KOLs submit work -> Manual Review -> Pay.
The Risk: It's high-friction. If a KOL's work is rejected, they get paid zero. Churn will be astronomical compared to the automated "click-to-earn" days.
3. The "Korea" Pivot (The Revu Model)
This is the "Sponsored Blog" approach used by Korean giant Revu.
The Shift: Instead of open, permissionless farming, the platform pre-selects KOLs based on data.
The Alpha: Only vetted creators get the brief. Payment is guaranteed if guidelines are met. It trades scale for quality control, solving the spam issue that triggered X's ban.
4. Multi-Platform Hell
Moving to YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram sounds logical but is operationally brutal.
Complexity: X was text (easy). TikTok is video (hard).
The Trap: This effectively requires building a new startup from scratch. While the audience is larger, the crypto-native liquidity isn't there.
5. The Web3 MCN (The Real Play)
This is where the smart money moves. InfoFi 2.0 isn't a protocol; it's a Tech-Enabled Agency (MCN).
Strategy: Use the historical data to identify high-impact KOLs and sign them to management contracts.
Value: Sell "Sniper" marketing (precision) to projects, rather than "Shotgun" marketing (spam). Data becomes the moat.
InfoFi 2.0: The Quality Control Crisis
The collapse teaches a harsh lesson on incentive design: Rewards without strict gates equal Spam.
As Tiger Research notes, participants will always game the system. Without X's API to filter content, the "Permissionless" dream is over. InfoFi 2.0 will be a gated club—smaller, vetted, and harder to enter.
If Kaito pivots to a glorified marketing agency, the final question remains: Why does the $KAITO token exist? Unless projects can realign tokenomics to this new "Agency Model," the token is a vestigial organ of a dead business model.
Disclaimer: This document is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views expressed in this document are not, and should not be taken as, investment advice or recommendations. Recipients should do their own due diligence, taking into account their specific financial circumstances, investment objectives and risk tolerance, which are not considered here, before investing. This document is not an offer, or the solicitation of an offer, to buy or sell any of the assets mentioned.