The Evolution of Information Flow Platforms: From 3 O'Clock Community to Kaito

The history of cryptocurrency is filled with traces of hype and speculation. From the early Bitcoin frenzy to the later various token projects, the market has always been rife with fantasies of "getting rich quick." However, amidst this noise, true value creation is often overlooked.

Crypto Twitter (CT) has witnessed the rapid development of this field as an important platform for industry information exchange. Recently, the rise of the Kaito project has sparked reflection on the business models of information flow platforms. Kaito has successfully connected project parties with opinion leaders (KOLs), somewhat similar to the operational model of traditional internet platforms.

Looking back at history, we can clearly see the evolution path of cryptocurrency information flow platforms:

2018-2021: WeChat Group Era

In 2018, the emergence of the 3 o'clock community marked the birth of professional KOLs. WeChat groups and AMAs (Ask Me Anything) became mainstream marketing methods, allowing founders to communicate directly with potential community members. During this period, traditional media still dominated, with outlets like ChainDD and Planet Daily emerging.

2022: Twitter Information Aggregation Attempts

With the tightening of regulatory policies in China in May 2021, the focus of the cryptocurrency industry has shifted overseas. Twitter has become a major information exchange platform. Projects like Twitterscan are attempting to integrate cryptocurrency information from Twitter, but they face challenges in their business models.

2023: The Brief Prosperity of Friend.Tech

Friend.Tech attempts to tokenize KOL influence and has achieved great success in the short term. However, this model soon faced sustainability issues, proving that relying solely on content trading is difficult to maintain in the long run.

2024-2025: The Rise of Kaito

Kaito was originally positioned as an AI-driven cryptocurrency search tool, later shifting to KOL ranking and points system. It successfully separated the information flow from the capital flow, providing KOLs with a fair platform for display. Kaito's success lies in:

1. Effectively filter out bots and spam messages, highlighting genuine KOLs.
2. Created a Yap system similar to the market fairness leaderboard.
3. Become a standardized intermediary platform that connects project parties, KOLs, and users.

Nevertheless, Kaito still faces challenges in further exploring the tokenization model, as demonstrated by the $LOUD event.

Future Outlook

The next development direction of the encrypted information flow platform may be to find a model that can directly convert the information flow into transactions. However, achieving this goal is not simple, as cryptocurrency users often place more importance on liquidity rather than the intrinsic value of the information itself.

The evolution of information flow platforms reflects the overall development trajectory of the cryptocurrency industry. From the early niche communities to today's global platforms, this field has always been seeking the best way to balance information dissemination and value creation. The future winners are likely to be the platforms that can find the perfect combination between the two.