Elon Musk’s
X has now removed their API access, meaning bots and users can no longer make money just by posting. After the announcement, the KAITO token fell by about 15%, from about $0.70 to $0.57.
KaitoAI founder Yu Hu said the company will discontinue its ‘Yaps’ rewards and leaderboard system. Kaito is now moving to a new model called Kaito Studio, which will focus on higher quality creators and better brand partnerships instead of massive rewards programs.
We’re revising our developer API policy:
We no longer allow apps that reward users for posting to This has led to a huge amount of AI slop & reply spam on the platform.
We’ve revoked API access for these apps, so your X experience should…
— Nikita Bier (@nikitabier) January 15, 2026
Hu explained that Yaps was intended to reward people fairly based on their contributions. Over time, Kaito has added stricter rules and filters to reduce spam. However, spam on X still increased because other projects had weaker rules, and X’s algorithm changes allowed low-quality messages to spread.
Kaito is switching to targeted creator rewards
Many cryptocurrency projects used Kaito to promote their tokens and attract users, especially in South Korea. However, Hu said the cryptocurrency industry is evolving. Instead of large airdrops and open reward systems, projects now prefer targeted incentives that reward specific actions.
Kaito Studio will use a layer system where brands collaborate with selected creators based on data and relevance. It will also expand to other platforms such as YouTube and TikTok, and later to non-crypto industries.
Hu confirmed that Kaito’s other products, such as Kaito Pro, API, Launchpad and Markets, will not be affected. The KAITO token will still be used in the new system.
The move caused mixed reactions in the crypto community. Some experts blamed AI spam campaigns for the problem, while others praised X for cleaning up false engagements and improving content quality.
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