How Kaito Went Viral

Web3 founders think virality is random.

They see a new product blow up overnight and assume it’s just “luck.”

Reality check: Virality is engineered.

Let’s take a look at a recent viral campaign. 

Kaito’s Genesis NFT jumped from 0.1 ETH to 7 ETH in just 30 days.

(That’s a $18,641+ increase for you non-NFT folk) 

You don’t get those gains with luck. It’s a playbook.

Let’s break down exactly how Kaito cracked the code—and how you can apply it to your own project.

Step 1: The Cold Start Fix

Most founders launch too wide. Kaito did the opposite.

They built a deep, niche community first—targeting onchain researchers and content creators.

How? Direct outreach.

• 1:1 demos to key users

• Free trials to spark engagement

• Personalized onboarding to ensure retention

By October 2024, Kaito had real users who needed their product.

Your turn: Who is your ideal customer? Define it now. Need a guide? 

Reply brief for a step-by-step breakdown on finding and targeting them.

Step 2: The Expansion Playbook

Once they had a core audience, they introduced the Yap Leaderboard—a ranking system for who drives the most attention in Web3.

But instead of targeting everyone, they focused on one ecosystem: Berachain.

Why?

→ They tapped into an existing hype cycle. Berachain was trending.

→ They made it competitive. More yaps = higher ranking.

→ They made it shareable. One-click posts turned users into marketers.

This playbook worked so well that Kaito repeated it with Monad, Fantasy, and Story Protocol—embedding itself in each ecosystem.

Your turn: What’s one community you can dominate before scaling wider?

Step 3: Virality Engineered: Two Key Lessons

1. Social Currency – People share what makes them look good.

→ The Yap Score turned influence into a game.

→ Instead of an “Influencer Score” (cringe), they made it fun.

→ Users wanted to share their rankings.

2. Public Visibility – If it’s built to show, it’s built to grow.

→ Kaito made leaderboard posts effortless to share.

→ The visuals were designed to trigger FOMO.

→ Each share pulled in new users.

The takeaway? Make it easy for users to flex. 

Your turn: How can you make your product easy to share—and even easier to flex?

Steal This: How To Engineer Virality in Your Product

If you’re building in Web3, ask yourself:

Who is my core audience? Go deep before going wide.

What makes my product shareable? People share what boosts their status.

What hyped-narrative can you to tap into? Ride an existing wave.

Keep Building,

Jax 

PS - Want a full guide on how to write a creative brief to better engineer virality? Send me a reply with “brief” for a full guide.

PSS - Have you watched our training on Kaito? Watch it below.