Kaito, a platform combining artificial intelligence with cryptocurrency data analysis, listed its native token KAITO on major exchanges on February 20, 2025. Within a week, the price surged to an all-time high of $2.92 before collapsing. By March 13, KAITO traded around $1.40, a drop of more than 51% from its peak.
What is Kaito? AI-Powered Crypto Analytics
Kaito claims to aggregate data from over 1,000 sources — social media, forums, analytics platforms, and news outlets — using its proprietary Large Language Model (LLM). The platform has three main components: Kaito Connect, an “InfoFi” protocol for search and analysis; Kaito Pro, a paid search engine that accesses deeper data; and Kaito Yaps, a sentiment analysis tool that rewards users for creating engaging content on platforms like X.
Yaps Airdrop Draws Community Backlash
The Yaps mechanism distributed KAITO tokens to users who actively promoted Kaito on social media. Critics point out that the system heavily favored users with large follower counts. The AI algorithm that determined reward eligibility lacked transparency, leaving many small participants dissatisfied with the final allocation.
Price Volatility and Controversy: From $2.92 to $1.40
KAITO debuted strongly, reaching $2.92 on February 27. But volatility soon set in: on March 13, the price dipped to $1.46, bounced to $2.18, then fell again to close near $1.40. The decline is widely linked to immediate selling by whale wallets that received large airdrops, fueling speculation of pump-and-dump schemes and even insider trading.
Tokenomics and Background
As of early March 2025, roughly 241 million KAITO tokens were in circulation, less than 25% of the total supply of 1 billion. The project was founded in 2022 by Yu Hu, a former managing director at hedge fund Citadel. Kaito’s security and future price performance remain uncertain, given the lingering dissatisfaction over the airdrop distribution.