Kaito Ranking: A Launch Tool for Projects or a Flash in the Pan?

The crypto market has long been driven by narratives. In 2025, a new attention-grabbing mechanism became the focus: the KaitoAI Earn leaderboard. These incentive activities reward early researchers, commentators, and meme creators (commonly known as "yappers") for generating hype before the project's launch in exchange for future token allocations.

Its operating model is as follows:

• Reward early user recognition
• Fabricating stories
• Create demand before the token generation event (TGE).

This method is indeed effective. Leaderboards can enhance exposure, trading volume, and social recognition. But the problem is:

Can this attention last?

Once the token issuance and airdrop are claimed, those active participants will turn to the next token issuance. Prices fall, trading volume shrinks, and participation gradually declines.

This article analyzes several projects related to Kaito to explore whether the hype can continue after the token launch. A trend is emerging: the narrative is designed to attract attention rather than to maintain heat.

Let's start with the SKATE project.

Skate: High trading volume, a large number of listed coins, and stagnation after Kaito

SKATE is a token related to the Solana modular gaming layer, which had strong momentum at launch. With support from multiple well-known exchanges and the extensively promoted Kaito Earn event, SKATE had ample liquidity and high visibility at launch.

• TGE: June 10, 2025
• Issue price (opening price): 0.06506 USD
• First day closing price: 0.05094 USD
• First day trading volume: 41.46 million USD
• Initial FDV: approximately 65 million USD
• Current price (July 7): $0.04065
• Current FDV: approximately $40.65 million
• Decline after TGE: about 37.5%
• Current 24-hour trading volume: 8.46 million USD
• Trading volume/MC ratio (July 7): approximately 139%

The early trading of SKATE showed a good start. On June 10, the token's attention surged sharply, with the price once soaring to $0.06539, but then quickly retraced to around $0.05094, resulting in about a 22% pullback on the first day.

Subsequently, when other projects under Kaito went live, a similar trend was observed.

• Mid-June: Supported by post-listing momentum, the price rebounded to $0.051 to $0.048 (from June 11 to 16).
• June 21 to 23: Trading volume fluctuated significantly (daily trading volume around 110 million USD), but lacked a strong directional trend.
• June 30 to July 4: Experienced a brief fluctuation, soaring to $0.06234, and then quickly falling.
• July 5 to 7: The price fell to $0.04065, a drop of about 37% since TGE and a decline of about 22% since the peak on July 4.

Social heat also peaked early but then quickly declined. Within 7 to 10 days after launch, Kaito contributors shifted their attention to new leaderboard projects and token activities, resulting in a significant drop in mentions and engagement.

Summary: Rotation is greater than retention

SKATE has all the favorable conditions: it is listed on major exchanges, has high liquidity, and is part of a reward-oriented Kaito ecosystem narrative. However, the attention on SKATE has not been sustained. Despite SKATE's daily trading volume being close to 140% of its market cap, SKATE remains a high turnover asset that no one holds for the long term.

The story of SKATE is similar to that of other tokens in the Kaito Earn ecosystem:

• Hype before launch
• Immediately drive trading volume after going live
• Airdrop Claim and Quick Exit
• Narrative exhaustion within a few weeks

The market performance of SKATE further confirms the criticism aimed at the project driven by Kaito: high exposure, low user retention.

Huma: Launchpool hype, Kaito rewards 0.5%, first-day rotation amount reaches 300 million USD

Huma is a decentralized payment financing protocol (PayFi), which utilizes the complete technology stack of a certain trading platform and Kaito, and will issue its native token HUMA on May 26, 2025.

A trading platform's Launchpool event allows users to mine HUMA by staking BNB, FDUSD, or USDC from May 23 to 26. At the same time, Huma has also launched the Kaito Earn activity, allocating 0.5% of the total supply to three "Seasons."

First quarter allocation situation:

• 0.1% allocated to the top 500 participants of Kaito
• 0.1% allocated to contributors in the Solana, DeFi, and RWA categories
• Distribution to holders of SOL wallet registered and Kaito ecosystem tokens

A trading platform will start trading at 21:00 on May 26 (UTC+8). As of May 27:

• TGE (Opening Price): 0.06683 USD
• Closing price on the first day: $0.05936
• Opening pullback: about 11.2%
• First day trading volume: $310.37 million
• Day 1 Market Cap: $102.89 million
• Current Price (July 7): $0.03083
• Current market cap: $53.44 million
• FDV: $308.6 million
• Trading volume/market cap ratio (July 7): ~33%

Despite the hype from Launchpool and Kaito Earn, most of HUMA's trading is rotational trading. The rewards for the first season can be claimed from day one, and the second season has also been announced, which has led to increased selling pressure rather than long-term holding.

After briefly stabilizing at around $0.05 in early June, the price continued to decline over the next month, falling by 40% from June 9 to July 7. This trend reflects not only profit-taking but also a lack of sustained demand. Daily trading volume shrank by over 90% from its peak on the first day, while the gap between FDV ($308 million) and actual market value ($53 million) continued to widen, further reinforcing the market's view that much of HUMA's appeal is driven by activity rather than the product itself.

Summary: HUMA showcases a typical Kaito Earn model: impressive data, huge liquidity, but lacks lasting appeal. Its launch aims to enhance visibility rather than to gain steadfast support, and due to the lack of practicality and demand post-launch, early attention comes quickly and fades just as fast.

Quai: Large-scale distribution, deep Kaito integration, strong launch... then fades into silence

Quai is a decentralized multi-threaded blockchain protocol that has launched the most generous and deeply integrated Kaito Earn program to date. From January 17, 2025, to April 17, 2025, the project will allocate a total of 6 million QUAI tokens to reward content contributors:

• 5.5 million QUAI used for Kaito leaderboard
• 500,000 QUAI for the Quai exclusive leaderboard

From April 29 to May 12, users can claim through the Kipper platform. Weekly snapshots track contributors, with several top yappers receiving up to 5.95% of personal recognition shares, far exceeding SKATE or HUMA.

Although the Quai mainnet was launched on January 29, the token could only be freely traded after the exchange data was released on February 22.

QUAI first day performance (February 22, 2025):

• Opening price: 0.09884 USD
• Highest Price: $0.2263
• Closing price: 0.1929 USD
• Trading Volume: $10.14 million

Subsequent trend: rotation, reversal, and a long cooling period.

QUAI is one of the most eye-catching new projects among the tokens under Kaito. Its price surged from $0.09884 to $0.2263 during the session, an increase of 129%, and finally closed at $0.1929, a rise of 95%.

But this is already the peak.

In the coming weeks:

• From February 23 to 26: Prices fell rapidly, dropping to around $0.17 to $0.18.
• From March 1 to 15: Prices continued to decline to the range of 0.12 to 0.08 USD, reflecting the normal performance of capital rotation after speculation.
• April to May: Despite several small rebound attempts, the support strength gradually weakens.
• June to July: The price range of the token was between $0.06 and $0.07. As of July 7, the trading price was $0.05266, down about 73% from the closing price and down about 76.7% from the highest price.

The trading volume also indicates the situation:

• From the $10 million on the first day to about $3 million now, indicating a sharp decline in activity.
• Even the Kaito rewards in the second phase did not significantly enhance the demand after TGE.

Summary: QUAI has many advantages: a large distribution of Kaito, strong brand influence, a highly anticipated TGE, and strong early price trends. However, attention is shifting quickly. Even leading yapper has not been able to stabilize its secondary market interest.

The current trading price of QUAI has fallen below the issuance price and has not seen any significant rebound since March, which fully demonstrates that early liquidity does not equate to lasting confidence.

Soon: Integration with Kaito, a popular trading platform, and real-world testing

Soon, a high-performance Solana Optimistic Network (SVM-based rollup), hosted one of the most structured and community-driven Kaito Earn events at the beginning of 2025. During the 3-month event, 450,000 SOON tokens (approximately 0.045% of the total supply) were allocated to the top 100 yapper.

• Event Date: February 19, 2025 - May 19, 2025
• Claim Period: May 23, 2025 to June 23, 2025
• Eligibility: Kaito leaderboard contributors, early NFT holders, builder badge owners

This event is not just a reward airdrop, but also integrates the brand image of SOON. Participating users will receive the "Sooner" role, badges, and social status, which reinforces that Kaito yappers are a key force in the early dissemination of SOON.

TGE and market launch: from heated discussion to soaring popularity

The SOON token was issued on May 23 and listed on a trading platform on May 24. The opening price of the token was $0.4527, briefly reaching $0.4776, with a closing price of $0.4007 on the same day. The trading volume on the first day surpassed $103 million, reflecting a significant amount of speculative activity and the amplification effect of the exchange.

Partial market indicators (as of July 7, 2025):

• TGE Date: May 23, 2025
• Opening price on the first day: 0.4527 USD
• First day closing price: 0.4007 USD
• First-day trading volume: $103.1 million
• Current Price: 0.1529 USD
• Market Cap: Approximately $26.9 million
• Opening pullback: approximately 66.2%
• Maximum Drawdown: Approximately 68.0%
• Trading Volume/Market Cap Ratio (July 7): Approximately 97%

What happened after the first day?

After the initial excitement, SOON embarked on the now familiar post-Kaito era curve:

• Late May to mid-June: SOON remains in the range of $0.29 to $0.39, with little fluctuation, slowly declining.
• Late June: Support level breaks below $0.25, trading volume increases from June 27 to 30, showing an accelerated downtrend.
• July 5 to 7: SOON plummeted 40% within 48 hours, from $0.22 to $0.13, then slightly rebounded to $0.15.

The recent plunge coincided with the end of the claiming period (June 23), after which many claimants may have sold their holdings, and attention has shifted to other Kaito activities.

Summary: The earlier you sell, the better?

SOON has all the elements for a successful launch: a strong foundation.