After the launch of the Kaito ranking project, prices generally fell, raising doubts about long-term value.

Kaito Rankings: A Tool for Project Launch or a Short-term Speculation Tool?

The crypto market has long been driven by narratives. In 2025, a new attention-grabbing mechanism came to the forefront: the Kaito AI Earn leaderboard. These incentive activities reward early researchers, commentators, and meme creators for generating buzz before the project launch in exchange for future token distributions.

Its operating model is now widely known:

  • Reward early user awareness
  • 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 drop, trading volume shrinks, and participation gradually declines.

This article analyzes several related projects, including $SKATE, $HUMA, $QUAI, and $SOON, to explore whether this hype can be sustained after the tokens are launched. A trend is emerging: the narratives are designed to attract attention rather than to maintain excitement.

Let's start with SKATE.

Skate: High trading volume, a large number of tokens listed, and subsequent stagnation.

$SKATE is a token related to the Solana modular gaming layer, and it launched with strong momentum. With listing support from multiple well-known exchanges and an in-depth promotion of the Kaito Earn campaign, SKATE had ample liquidity and high visibility at the time of its launch.

  • TGE: June 10, 2025
  • Issue Price (Opening Price): 0.06506 USD
  • First day closing price: $0.05094
  • First day trading volume: 41.46 million USD
  • Initial FDV: approximately 65 million USD
  • Current Price (July 7): 0.04065 USD
  • Current FDV: approximately 40.65 million USD
  • Decline after TGE: approximately 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 a pullback of about 22% on the first day.

Subsequently, similar trends were observed when other related projects went live:

  • Mid-June: Supported by post-listing momentum, the price rebounded to between $0.051 and $0.048 (from June 11 to June 16).
  • June 21 to 23: Trading volume fluctuated significantly (daily trading volume around $110 million), but there was a lack of strong directional trends.
  • From June 30 to July 4: There was a brief fluctuation, peaking at $0.06234, followed by a rapid decline.
  • July 5 to 7: The price fell to $0.04065, a decrease of about 37% since the TGE, and a drop of about 22% from the peak on July 4.

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

Summary: Rotation is greater than retention

SKATE has all the favorable conditions: listing on major exchanges, high liquidity, and a rewards-oriented ecosystem narrative. However, SKATE's attention has not been sustained. Despite SKATE's daily trading volume being close to 140% of its market cap, SKATE remains a high turnover asset with no long-term holders.

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

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

The market performance of SKATE further confirms the criticisms raised against such projects: high visibility, low user engagement.

Kaito Ranking is a "tool" for project launch, but what will happen after TGE?

Huma: Launchpool hype, 0.5% rewards, first-day turnover reached 300 million USD

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

A well-known 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, distributing 0.5% of the total supply across three "Seasons".

First quarter allocation situation:

  • 0.1% allocated to the top 500 participants
  • 0.1% allocated to contributors in the Solana, DeFi, and RWA categories
  • Distribution to those who registered through the SOL wallet and hold the ecosystem tokens.

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

  • TGE (Opening Price): $0.06683
  • Closing price on the first day: $0.05936
  • Opening Retracement: Approximately 11.2%
  • First day trading volume: $310.37 million
  • Day 1 Market Cap: $10.289 million
  • Current Price (July 7): $0.03083
  • Current Market Value: 53.44 million USD
  • 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. 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, dropping 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 more than 90% from the 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 exhibits a typical pattern: the data is impressive, liquidity is huge, but there is a lack of lasting appeal. Its launch aims to enhance visibility rather than gain steadfast support, and due to the lack of practicality and demand post-launch, the initial attention comes quickly and fades just as fast.

Kaito ranking becomes a project launch "magic tool", but what will happen after TGE?

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

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

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

From April 29 to May 12, users can claim through the Kipper platform. Weekly snapshots track contributors, with top participants like @0xalank, @basedPavel, and @Abhijeetcg 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
  • Highest Price: 0.2263 USD
  • Closing price: 0.1929 USD
  • Trading volume: 10.14 million USD

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

QUAI is one of the most prominent new projects among related tokens. Its price surged from $0.09884 to $0.2263 during the session, an increase of 129%, and ultimately closed at $0.1929, a gain of 95%.

But this is already the peak.

In the coming weeks:

  • From February 23 to 26: Prices fell sharply, dropping to around $0.17 to $0.18.
  • From March 1 to 15: Prices continued to fall within the range of $0.12 to $0.08, reflecting the normal performance of capital rotation after speculation.
  • April to May: Despite several attempts at small rebounds, the support strength gradually weakened.
  • 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 first day's 10 million dollars to the current approximately 3 million dollars, indicating a sharp decline in activity.
  • Even the rewards of the second phase did not significantly increase the demand after TGE.

Summary: QUAI has many advantages: large distribution, strong brand influence, a highly anticipated TGE, and robust early price trends. However, attention is quickly shifting. Even top participants have not been able to solidify their interest in the secondary market.

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

Kaito Ranking becomes the "artifact" for project launch, but what will happen after TGE?

Soon: Deep Integration, Explosive Launch, and Reality Verification

Soon, a high-performance Solana Optimistic Network (SVM-based rollup), hosted one of the most structured and community-cohesive events in early 2025. During the 3-month activity period, the project allocated 450,000 SOON tokens (approximately 0.045% of the total supply) to the top 100 participants.

  • Event Date: February 19, 2025 - May 19, 2025
  • Claiming Period: May 23, 2025 to June 23, 2025
  • Eligibility: Leaderboard contributors, early NFT holders, builders 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 early participants are the key force in the early dissemination of SOON.

TGE and Market Release: From Hot 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, and the closing price for the day was $0.4007. The trading volume on the first day exceeded $103 million, reflecting a large amount of speculative activity and the amplifying effect of the exchanges.

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

  • TGE Date: May 23, 2025
  • Opening price on the first day: $0.4527
  • First day closing price: 0.4007 USD
  • First-day trading volume: 103.1 million USD
  • Current Price: $0.1529
  • 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 follow-up curve:

  • Late May to mid-June: SOON remained in the range of $0.29 to $0.39, with little fluctuation and a slow decline.
  • Late June: Support level breaks below $0.25, with an increase in trading volume from June 27 to 30, showing an accelerated downward trend.
  • July 5 to 7: SOON plummeted by 40% within 48 hours, falling from $0.22 to $0.13, and then slightly rebounded to $0.15.

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

Summary: The sooner you sell, the better?

SOON has all the elements for a successful launch: strong infrastructure promotion, exposure on mainstream trading platforms, and community incentive mechanisms. However, the token has dropped 66% over six weeks, indicating speculation.

KAITO-4.42%
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rugged_againvip
· 07-21 03:17
Just another play people for suckers.
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UncommonNPCvip
· 07-21 03:15
Hype hype, in the end, it's still hype.
View OriginalReply0
Ser_This_Is_A_Casinovip
· 07-21 03:13
Just a pure sucker harvesting machine.
View OriginalReply0
rekt_but_vibingvip
· 07-21 02:52
Whoever lives, whoever runs fast.
View OriginalReply0
BlockDetectivevip
· 07-21 02:51
Be Played for Suckers n.0 version
View OriginalReply0
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