My thoughts on the Kaito Leaderboard thresholds Just so you know, this will be a long read, I’m going to be quite unfiltered and unbiased. One thing I want you to understand is that @KaitoAI's upgrade comes with tradeoffs. For the purpose of this tweet, we'd be focusing on two critical changes: • Replies not counting towards mindshare • Yaps and smart follower thresholds 1. Replies not counting towards mindshare While, I have mixed feelings, it is evident that the benefit is very clear. I believe replies are for growth and making connections. People should reply to posts they resonate with, not becaue they want to game the system and "farm" mindshare This models actually filters bad behavior and incentivizes true creator growth. This fixation on rewards has led to a deep rot in InfoFi which people have called out. This rot is obvious as AI slop contents and crazy engagement farming. When @vohvohh pointed out some of these things, she recieved heavy backlash in the process. Prior to her write up on InfoFi, @beast_ico has been a "merchant of this narrative" and he too faced similar criticisms. Spamming replies to rank higher on a leaderboard can never equate to influence. We might say it is attention but not all atention is considered valuable. Every creator should be judged by their content and organic reach. One issue I noticed with people who spammed replies was that once they switched topics, they couldn't retain their engagements. If there's anything I've learned from @0xAbhiP, a autheniticity of your voice is a non-negotiable. However, there is definitely a downside in that some creators have genuinely used replies to grow. Many start insightful discussions which drive conversations about the project. I believe people like this shouldn't be caught in this crossfire even if they’re the minority. If I go back and forth with @jimmyboolish on Caldera and people join in, why shouldn’t that count toward mindshare? I don't think such a scenario like this should be excluded from earning mindshare Still, I understand the tradeoff. 2. Yaps and smart follower thresholds From what I’ve seen, the current threshold is around 200 yaps with a minimum of 100+ smart followers. The stronger emphasis on yaps makes a lot of sense but I disagree with the number used. Only 3% of 1 million users have earned a yap. A bar of 200 yaps is too much of an aggressive filter. Since Kaito is still iterating, I suspect they intentionally set a high ceiling to stress-test the system. But there's one thing to note: Everyone’s mindshare still counts, whether you’re in the wider community or the creator’s circle. You just need the required yaps to enter the creator’s circle. A good example is @NiphermeDave. He was absent from some leaderboards despite being a prominent voice. After unlocking 200+ yaps, he now appears in the creator list for projects like @FogoChain, @AlloraNetwork, @union_build, @cysic_xyz, and @billions_ntwk. If you are an emerging creator and not a yap mercenary, take this as a signal to improve your Kaito alignment metrics. Kaito is running a business. Its goal is profitability and effectiveness for clients. Your feelings do not outweigh the need to optimize for signal over noise. We can’t deny the timeline feels cleaner now. And we can’t deny that optimizing for smart followers and yaps pulls you closer to the signal tree of CT. The way forward is to look beyond short-term rewards and think about alignment. Kaito is not against your growth. It is a tool to scale it. I want you to look beyond low value attention markets and focus on capturing social capital. Look at @basitWeb3 and @SerrDavee in the MegaETH ecosystem. How about @0x_yash21 and @zayn4pf on Monad? The way to grow as a creator is NEVER pointless mindshare farming. It is genuine growth and an audience that converts.