The Rise and Fall of InfoFi: Why Lever.io is Winning Where "Yap-to-Earn" Failed
InfoFi promised to monetize information. Instead, it rewarded spam, broke incentives, and collapsed under its own weight.
InfoFi promised to revolutionize Web3 marketing.
Instead, it turned Crypto Twitter into a spammy wasteland, a back alley of X where yap-addicted degenerates churned AI-generated tweets, replies, and QTs in a performative, self-gratifying, daisy chain of drivel.
The scheme crashed spectacularly earlier this January when Nikita Bier went full Nancy Reagan, declaring, "Say No to InfoFi."
We are revising our developer API policies:
— Nikita Bier (@nikitabier) January 15, 2026
We will no longer allow apps that reward users for posting on X (aka “infofi”). This has led to a tremendous amount of AI slop & reply spam on the platform.
We have revoked API access from these apps, so your X experience should…
Now, it's time for Crypto Twitter, and KOL marketing in general, to move forward.
While InfoFi projects are scrambling to rebuild after pushing X to the limit, Lever.io has already been building a sustainable alternative to traditional agencies.
What Was InfoFi? 🤖
InfoFi—or Information Finance, yet another play on fill-in-the-blank finance—promised to turn posts and replies into money:
- Tweet about a crypto project? Get tokens.
- Reply to trending threads? Get paid.
- Share market research? Cash out.
The appeal was obvious. Web2 platforms extract billions from user attention while creators get scraps.
So, InfoFi claimed to flip that paradigm.
The Death of InfoFi: How It All Went Wrong 💀
The problem: InfoFi rewarded volume, not value:
- Post more, earn more.
- Reply faster, get paid.
- Poor quality filters, no real verification, just rawdog outreach.
People gamed the system, immediately.
- Why write thoughtful analysis when you could pump out AI-generated replies?
- Why build genuine community when you could farm engagement with bots and alt accounts?
- The incentives were broken from day one, but vanity metrics kept the party going.
X timelines turned into absolute garbage.
- Threads filled with senseless replies.
- Botted accounts everywhere.
- AI slop drowning out actual conversation.
- Users were "optimizing for engagement metrics and airdrops," which is a fancy way of saying they spammed the platform into the ground.
The data backs this up: marketing agencies were already using bots and fake metrics before InfoFi.
Adding extra financial incentives just turbocharged the problem.
The Inevitable Ban: X puts and end to InfoFi.
- January 15, 2026. Nikita Bier, X's head of product, dropped the hammer: no more APIs for apps that pay users to post.
- The reason was blunt: too much "AI slop & reply spam."
- The premise of "yap-to-earn" suddenly fell apart.
The lesson is clear for Web3 marketers.
- Market across multiple platforms.
- Don't extract value from communities and platforms by repeating low-energy strategies that churn a buck.
- Do some actual marketing work instead of creating elaborate token-distribution schemes.
What InfoFi Got Wrong (And What Lever Gets Right)
- InfoFi died because it confused activity with value, a major mistake.
Lever.io
- You can pay people to post, but you can't long-term spray and pray.
Lever.io
- Web3 marketing and planning has to grow up.
Lever.io
- The execution shortcuts are over.
Lever.io
- And here's the thing: the collapse creates space for methods with better results.
Lever.io
Lever.io vs. InfoFi: KOL Marketing for Today and Tomorrow's Realities
While InfoFi was busy destroying X timelines, Lever.io was building actual infrastructure for Web3 influencer marketing.
Instead of paying any random poster to spam your project for rewards, Lever built a marketplace connecting vetted KOLs with Web3 brands.
With Lever, brands (and their marketing budget) can approach and hire KOLs...instead of KOLs sapping each brand's spend with what's essentially a sybil-attack on a
The difference is structural.
🤖 InfoFi rewarded volume: post more, earn more.
🟠 Lever rewards results: drive conversions, get paid.
🤖 InfoFi let anyone farm tokens with bots.
🟠 Lever vets creators and uses escrow payments to ensure deliverables.
🤖 InfoFi concentrated on X and died when X banned them.
🟠 Lever runs campaigns across YouTube, X, and TikTok.
👉 It's the difference between hoping token incentives magically create quality content versus actually managing campaigns like a professional marketer, which is the Lever approach.
Lever tackles the influencer fraud problem (which costs brands $1.3 billion annually) through comprehensive vetting.
We use a host of in-house metrics like "View Velocity"—monthly views divided by followers—to find KOLs who actually perform, not just those with large zombie audiences.
And with Lever, brands can launch campaigns in 24 hours without building dedicated influencer teams, and they can do it without resorting to spam.
This is critical in crypto, where timing and authenticity matters.
The Numbers Show Consistent Results from Lever.io-led KOL Campaigns
InfoFi generated impressive-looking metrics that meant nothing. Lever delivers results that matter. Recent campaign results include:
DeFi Launch
- A protocol's new product was dead in the water after two weeks.
- Lever's campaign manager picked mid-tier YouTube creators with actual DeFi audiences—not follower count, but conversion rates.
- Results: 8x increase in deposits, 9x increase in new users, 40% better ROI than standard approaches.
Awareness Campaign
- Average CPM for crypto influencer posts runs $200-250.
- Lever hit under $11 by bundling micro and mid-tier KOLs instead of leaning solely on mega-accounts.
- Generated 300,000+ views and delivered 18-23x better results than industry benchmarks.
Micro KOL Performance
- 40 micro-influencers in niche crypto communities .
- Generated 100,000+ impressions at half the cost of one large KOL, with higher engagement rates.
- Lever consistently delivered 3-5x reach multipliers through bundling and 40% ROI improvement by focusing on data that actually predicts performance.
Why Lever's Model Works: Huge KOL Campaigns at Wholesale Costs
Lever does what InfoFi couldn't: it aligns incentives correctly.
Creators get invited to join campaigns for driving results, not posting volume. Brands get verified KOLs with real audiences, not bot farms.
Our platform handles vetting, payments, and campaign management—eliminating the operational chaos for founders and small marketing teams.
Lever.io
And critically, Lever has been multi-platform from day one.
When X changes its mind about Crypto Twitter tomorrow, Lever doesn't die. The infrastructure for building campaigns on Lever exists independent of any single platform's goodwill.
The timing is perfect. Web3 is maturing past hype cycles into technical credibility and long-term building.
New sectors like RWAs, DePIN, and AI need sophisticated marketing to specialized audiences. You can't just throw tokens at random accounts anymore.
Lever.io: The Post-InfoFi KOL Standard & Solution More Efficient Than Agencies
InfoFi wasn't entirely wrong:
- Information does have value.
- Creators should get paid.
- The attention economy needs disruption.
But you can't build that on spam and hope. The good ideas from InfoFi will resurface in healthier forms—tracking KOL reach and user behaviors via wallets/identities will be huge in the future of marketing, for example.
The broader lesson stands: unsustainable yields eventually collapse. What's left are platforms that prioritized value over viral growth from the beginning.
For projects navigating this new landscape, the path is straightforward but harder than the shortcuts promised. What works is professional influencer partnerships, data-driven campaign management, and content that provides actual value.
The yap-to-earn era is dead. What comes next is better.