Kaito airdrops $KAITO today. Wait, a data analytics platform needs a token? Welcome to Web3, where everything is tokenizable — from social media attention to your dog.

Solana's burn rate craters:

No, it’s not a data error. The SOL burn has indeed flatlined since the activation of Solana Improvement Document SIMD-0096 last week.

As Blockworks Research analyst Carlos Gonzalez Campo details, Solana's tokenomics have shifted dramatically post-SIMD-0096. The most visible impact? A near-elimination of SOL burn.

Before SIMD-0096, the network burned ~17,700 SOL daily, keeping annualized inflation at 3.6%. Now, just ~1,000 SOL is burned per day, pushing inflation up to 4.7%.

This change primarily benefits validators, who now receive ~51% of network fees, up from 30%, while token holders are seeing their net income drop.

Despite concerns that SIMD-0096 could lower priority fees, median fees in SOL terms remain steady. While volatility events (e.g., TRUMP, LIBRA) have driven short-term spikes, transaction costs for users haven't meaningfully declined.

— Macauley Peterson

Permissionless IV is where the sharpest minds in crypto push the boundaries of what’s possible. From high-stakes debates on the future of tokenized markets to hands-on sessions with the latest DeFi and infrastructure tools, this is where research meets real-world application.

And if you’re building? The hackathon is your ticket in — literally. Compete for a $100K+ prize pool, meet top investors, and ship something that actually matters.

Want to be on stage? Speaker applications are open.

Brooklyn. Summer. The next wave of onchain innovation. Are you in?

📅 June 22–26 | Brooklyn, NY

Kaito airdrops

Crypto is a volatile industry for primarily two reasons: 1) it’s permissionless (anyone can make a token) and 2) it’s still largely looking for product-market fit.

What does this mean to a short-term trader looking to flip a quick buck? If you’re trying to frontrun the market, you’d want to know when a certain narrative is falling in (and out of) favor. 

You can then spend absurd hours doomscrolling Twitter and Telegram groups — or you can use Kaito, a Web3-focused search engine that scrapes troves of data across social media to generate quantifiable sentiment analysis for you.

If you’ve spent time on CT in the last year, you’ve likely seen many of these useful Kaito dashboards around.

But people are excited about Kaito today because of its token airdrop, not its core analytical product.

Wait, a data analytics platform needs a token?

Yes it does, because you can apparently tokenize anything in crypto. In Kaito’s case, it’s tokenizing the attention economy of Crypto Twitter.

Everyone has a shot — you can connect your X account to Kaito, and tweet a lot to earn “Yap” points, which entitle you to a larger KAITO airdrop.

To deter mindless spam, the team weights Twitter posts by relevance (proof-of-work), originality (proof-of-insight) and engagement based on “reputation” (proof-of-exchange).

This entire idea is based on a familiar sales pitch: Big Tech sucks because they monopolize the value created by content creators. Kaito lets the people retain some of that value.

It also opens up a very interesting business model for Web3 marketing. 

The users who’ve signed up to “yap” away on Twitter provide Kaito with quality data around crypto trends and KOLs that can be sold to major ecosystem projects.

“Essentially Kaito does all the hard work that marketing teams would otherwise need to spec out to determine how and where to develop and spend on social marketing campaigns in terms of selecting the right set of KOLs, targeting the proper audience and so forth,” Blockworks’ Danny Knettel told me.

Now back to the points. Maybe you think this is another pointless “SocialFi” game we’ve seen with BitClout or friend.tech, but Kaito’s points are actually shaping up to be valuable.

Based on @Ren_gmi’s estimates, YAP points are worth anything between $20 to $140 per point.

Kaito hasn’t released details around its tokenomics just yet, but Binance’s announcement page of the KAITO token listing states about 24% of its total token supply on launch.

It’s unclear how Kaito’s token product ties into its core analytics product, and it’s still too early to speculate on there being any kind of value accrual between the two.

Assuming an annual price of $10,000 and 1,000 paid seats, Kaito generates annualized revenues of $10 million.

One could value KAITO at a conservative 20x P/S multiple, which would place the token’s value at a $200 million market cap (assuming a 24% token supply airdrop).

On Aevo’s pre-launch market, KAITO is presently trading at a $320 million market cap/$1.3 billion FDV.

— Donovan Choy

“Emergency” Sky (MakerDAO) Proposal sparks governance concerns

Something is brewing over in MakerDAO governance. The parameters around the use of the MKR token have been upended by an out-of-schedule proposal passed under the banner of “community security,” raising alarms over process integrity and risk implications.

The executive action removed the 5% exit fee on MKR withdrawals, expanded the borrowing capacity against MKR collateral and increased borrowing rates — all while lowering liquidation thresholds.

Forum commenters noted the drastic shift in DAI’s risk profile, questioning how these changes align with protocol resilience. Someone observed "it looks like [Maker founder] Rune just wants the exit fee removed so he can withdraw without paying 5%."

Higher loan-to-value (LTV) ratio on MKR raises systemic exposure, the commenter also pointed out.

On X, critics emphasized procedural irregularities. @PaperImperium contrasted the sudden approval with the rejection of five governance proposals that adhered to due process, warning "the emergency proposal to expand lending against Maker’s own gov token bypassed due process."

@ThreeSigma raised concerns over governance capture, citing rushed implementation and the silencing of dissenting voices. "If votes can be rushed without explanation…If critics can be banned without cause…then governance is just a puppet show."

Rune Christiansen instead wrote on the MakerDAO Discord just a few hours ago that the action aims to thwart a governance takeover.

With MKR’s price surge preceding the proposal, speculation is mounting over insider maneuvers. Is MakerDAO safeguarding its future — or consolidating power at the expense of governance legitimacy?

Watch this space.

— Macauley Peterson