What Is Kaito AI? Crypto Search, Mindshare Data and the KAITO Token

Kaito opened its search engine to the public in February 2023. At the same time it announced a $5.3 million raise led by Dragonfly, with Sequoia Capital China, Jane Street, AlphaLab Capital and Mirana Ventures also investing ⁵. Yu Hu is the founder and CEO ⁵.

The Terms of Use for Kaito's consumer app name OpenKaito Corporation as the operator, with disputes governed by Panamanian law ². In the Terms, Kaito says it is not a broker, exchange or financial institution, and that it is not registered or licensed by any regulator ². Kaito also says Kaito Pro is profitable and used by more than 500 investment, marketing and growth teams. These are company claims without published figures ⁴.

Kaito Pro is a search and monitoring tool built for crypto research. Its main inputs are posts, discussions and transcripts, not on-chain transactions ³:

• Sources. It indexes social media, governance forums, Farcaster, Telegram, Medium, news and research. It also uses Kaito's own transcripts of podcasts and conferences ³⁴.
• Search. "MetaSearch" lets you query a ticker, project or topic across these sources at once ³.
• Mindshare. Kaito measures what share of crypto conversation a token or narrative captures, and how that changes over time, across the market or within a sector ³.
• Sentiment. Shifts in tone are tracked, along with the posts driving them ³.
• Catalyst calendar. Token unlocks, launches, governance votes and similar events ³.
• Alerts, dashboards and an AI copilot for summaries ³.

Limits to keep in mind. Mindshare and sentiment scores measure attention, not fundamentals. Coordinated posting can inflate them, and that problem was a central criticism of reward-for-posting programs. Kaito's own Terms describe its leaderboards as for "general and recreational purposes" ². Kaito does not publish Pro pricing on the pages reviewed. Larger teams are directed to "Kaito Enterprise" ¹.

Yaps was Kaito's points system. Users linked an X account, and Kaito's AI scored their crypto posts. Projects then ran "incentivized leaderboards" that paid top posters in tokens. Yaps points helped decide eligibility for the KAITO airdrop ⁷.

On January 16, 2026, Yu Hu announced that Yaps and the incentivized leaderboards were ending. They were replaced by Kaito Studio, a curated model in which brands work with selected creators across several platforms ⁸. Kaito said Pro, the API, the Launchpad and the planned "Kaito Markets" were not affected ⁸. Kaito says the Studio network covers 80 million followers in 118 countries ⁴. The site still shows non-incentivized "Mindshare Arena" and "Aura" leaderboards ranking voices and companies ¹.

Kaito's Capital Launchpad gives users access to early token sales for other projects. Allocations are based on a mix of social reputation, on-chain activity, token holdings, past alignment with the project, region and "conviction" ⁹. Kaito does not detail KYC rules, fees or excluded countries on the overview page ⁹, so check each sale's own terms. Including region as a factor means eligibility can differ by country. Token sales are high-risk, and Kaito's Terms state that tokens can lose value ². For warning signs in token offerings, see how to avoid crypto scams.

KAITO launched on February 20, 2025, on Base, with a total supply of 1 billion ⁷. About 24% was expected to circulate at listing ⁷. Allocations ⁶:

Staked KAITO carries governance votes ⁶, and the site offers KAITO staking ¹. Vesting cliffs and durations for the team and investors are referenced but not detailed on the tokenomics page ⁶. This profile does not cover KAITO's price.

Using Kaito's consumer app means linking social accounts and connecting a self-custodial wallet ². The Terms warn of several things ²:

• Linked profiles can expose your real identity.
• Kaito and its ad partners may collect IP addresses and analytics.
• Communications on the app may be monitored.
• You remain responsible for your keys and gas fees.

Kaito never needs your seed phrase. Treat any "Kaito support" request for one as a scam.

Who can use it. The Terms prohibit users from Iran, North Korea, Russia, Cuba, Yemen, Sudan, South Sudan, Libya, Lebanon, Syria and occupied regions of Ukraine, and allow Kaito to refuse users from other countries. The United States is not on the prohibited list ².