The social media giant has decided to show the door to artificial intelligence-powered crypto platforms that were paying users to post. On Thursday, Nikita Bier, the head of product at X, announced a ban targeting applications that reward users for posting—often with AI-generated content that has been affectionately dubbed ‘AI slop.’
“We will no longer allow apps that reward users for posting on X (aka ‘infofi’),” Bier stated. “This has led to a tremendous amount of AI slop and reply spam on the platform.” He added that API access for these apps has been revoked, promising an improved user experience once the bots realize their paychecks have vanished into the digital ether.
The ban hit the market faster than a rug pull on a slow day. Within an hour, Kaito.ai announced it would sunset its “Yaps” product, which rewarded users for posting and engaging with crypto content on X. This led to a sharp drop in its KAITO token, as if the market suddenly realized the free lunch was over. Similarly, Cookie DAO said it would wind down its comparable “Snaps” product, causing its COOKIE token to tumble right alongside it.
Tokens took a hit, and not the gentle kind. According to CoinGecko, KAITO fell 17.7% to $0.57, while COOKIE dropped 15.5% to $0.038. The broader InfoFi crypto market cap declined 13% over the last 24 hours to $359.5 million, proving that when the party ends, the cleanup crew is always the tokens.
The ban also sparked accusations of insider knowledge faster than you can say "front-run." Over 1 million KAITO tokens are set to be unstaked on Friday, a figure 20 to 30 times higher than usual. Since unstaking takes seven days, some analysts speculate that insiders may have had an early warning of the ban, perhaps while the rest of us were still refreshing our feeds for the official announcement.
X stated it would support affected apps seeking to migrate to other social networks, a gesture as comforting as a life raft made of tissue paper. For the infofi platforms built on the promise of X integration, this sudden eviction leaves them scrambling to find a new home, all while their native tokens lick their wounds from the sudden policy shift.
