Gambling players "The sky is falling"! X completely bans InfoFi, ecosystem projects are fighting to survive with severed arms

Author: Nancy, PANews

On the night of January 15, a silent “earthquake” suddenly shook the crypto Twitter (CT) circle.
With X (formerly Twitter) issuing an announcement to cut off API access for InfoFi applications, the “post-to-mine” gameplay was halted. Project teams quickly shifted their strategies, and users lamented, “The sky is falling.”
Revoking API access and refusing to accept millions in “tolls”
The InfoFi track changed overnight.
Nikita Bier, head of X product and Solana ecosystem advisor, officially announced last night that the platform is revising developer API policies, no longer allowing applications that reward users for posting, directly targeting InfoFi.
Nikita stated that such incentive mechanisms are the main cause of the proliferation of AI spam messages and ineffective responses on the platform. Currently, X has revoked API access for these applications. Once the bots realize they are no longer being rewarded, user experience should improve quickly.
For developers whose accounts have been terminated, Nikita also “thoughtfully” suggested that teams could assist them in transitioning their businesses to Meta's Threads and the decentralized social media Bluesky, which is quite sarcastic.
More importantly, even applications like InfoFi, which contribute a lot of “tolls” through high-frequency API calls, have been abandoned by X. “InfoFi applications have already paid us millions of dollars for enterprise-level API access. We don't want that money,” Nikita said. This indicates that user experience is currently X's strategic priority, and these revenues are insignificant compared to X's overall annual revenue.
This officially marks the end of the InfoFi model parasitizing on the X ecosystem. The era of simple, brute-force “mouth-pumping” is gone forever.
In fact, this is not Nikita's first time “declaring war” on low-quality content.
Not long ago, he criticized the self-destructive trend of crypto tweets. Nikita posted that since October last year, there has been a saying circulating in CT that users need to reply hundreds of times daily to grow their accounts. However, each post consumes some influence, and since ordinary users only browse 20 to 30 posts a day, the platform cannot display all posts to all followers. As a result, crypto Twitter users send all their influence in their final posts, wasting influence on a few projects. The decline of crypto tweets stems from this behavior, not algorithm issues.

This tweet sparked strong dissatisfaction within the crypto community and even triggered a large-scale GM retaliation, ultimately leading to its deletion. But now it seems that X's crackdown on low-quality content was already foreshadowed.
Ecosystem projects are fighting to survive, and teams are accused of shipping early
As X tightens its API policies, the InfoFi narrative is facing a cold wave.
CoinGecko data shows that in the past 24 hours, the market cap of the InfoFi sector has fallen to $350 million, with many tokens experiencing double-digit declines. Even the floor price of Kaito's Yapybaras NFT has plummeted.
Under survival pressure, multiple InfoFi applications have announced transformations.
Representative project Kaito founder Yu Hu stated that the company will gradually terminate Yaps and the incentive-based leaderboard system, and instead launch a new Kaito Studio.
This decision stems from issues with low-quality content and spam, as well as the crypto industry's shift from high-frequency global distribution to more targeted marketing. After discussions with X, both sides reached a consensus: a completely unauthorized distribution system is no longer feasible or aligned with the needs of high-quality brands, serious content creators, and the X platform itself. Over the past few months, the platform has been developing Kaito Studio, which will adopt a layered traditional marketing model, connecting brands with high-quality creators through top-tier analytics tools across multiple platforms including X, YouTube, TikTok, and expanding into fields beyond crypto such as finance and AI.
Meanwhile, Cookie DAO, after negotiations with the X team, has decided to immediately shut down the Snaps platform and all creator activities. Cookie DAO stated it will wait for X to confirm and provide guidance on whether activities similar to Snaps can operate in any form in the future. The platform is also directly communicating with all project teams currently running Snaps activities. Some situations are more complex, involving paid event costs and promised rewards. Although no complete solution has been reached yet, the platform will uphold fairness and communicate directly with each project. Snapshots of all active activities have been taken, and updates will be provided to creators as soon as possible. Other products under Cookie are unaffected. Additionally, the platform has been developing a crypto real-time market intelligence tool, Cookie Pro, which is planned to launch in the first quarter.
From the project teams' statements, this policy adjustment was not a sudden black swan event; the teams were already aware of the changing environment and had prepared for transformation in advance. This has also sparked controversy in the market, with the community questioning whether projects knew about the negative news early and preemptively shipped.

Take Kaito as an example: its multi-signature contract address transferred a total of 24 million KAITO (approximately $13.31 million USD) to 5 addresses two weeks ago.
According to crypto KOL “vasucrypto,” the address starting with 0x049A related to the Kaito team transferred 5 million KAITO to Binance 7 days ago, possibly for sale. More intriguingly, crypto KOL “Crypto Fearless” added that Kaito's staking unlocks have peaked in recent days. 1.1 million KAITO tokens will also be unlocked tomorrow (January 17), with a 7-day unstaking cycle.
Farewell to the “mouth-pumping” era; content justice arrives late
X's brutal industry cleanup is not only a platform rule adjustment but also a reshaping of the crypto content ecosystem.
For X, which relies heavily on advertising revenue and subscriptions, facing slowing user growth, low monetization efficiency, and strong competitors, this adjustment is a necessary move for survival.
In fact, over the past few months, X has been implementing radical reforms in content and traffic distribution, including adjusting algorithm weights and increasing income for high-quality creators.
Ultimately, X's true target is not just the InfoFi model but also the low-quality content that severely dilutes platform value and drives away genuine users.
For the crypto Twitter circle, this is also a long-overdue act of content justice. Although the original intention of the InfoFi model was to encourage creators to produce high-quality content through token incentives, it briefly shined. However, this mechanism was also distorted by “grinding” behaviors, where many profit-seekers produced大量低質和重複的垃圾訊息 to earn rewards. This false traffic prosperity not only made content dull but also drowned out deep, valuable content, accelerating the loss of genuine users.
This “blockade” is undoubtedly a “noise filter” for CT users fed up with spam messages, finally allowing the timeline to breathe.
However, the decline in CT enthusiasm is not solely due to InfoFi but also closely related to the overall downturn of the crypto industry. Even crypto content views on YouTube have fallen to their lowest since January 2021.
Regardless, the end of the InfoFi model is an inevitable step toward improving the readability of crypto content and returning to content's core value. For InfoFi projects, when the shortcut of parasitizing on Web2 giants' traffic is cut off, establishing a SocialFi mechanism based on genuine value flow remains an urgent challenge.