Is attention=asset, does InfoFi still have potential in the race track?

By 2025, attention becomes the 'new currency' more important than data. This article is sourced from Marco Manoppo's work, compiled, translated, and written by Deep TechFlow. (Background: Kaito - an AI-driven encryption information aggregation platform: features, team, Tokenomics) In today's era, Mindshare has become the key to business success. If you think I sound like a typical venture capitalist with an obvious point to start with, you're right — but please keep reading. Attention has always been the most important 'currency' in the business world. This is also the core logic of product sales. Before the birth of the Internet, the golden age of print media and advertising had proven this point. At that time, tobacco companies increased sales by linking controversial social issues and movements to attract public followings. In simple terms, attention brings Mindshare, and Mindshare determines distribution efficiency. Subsequently, the era of brands arrived. Brands like Nike, Lucky Charms, and Nutella successfully captured consumers' Mindshare through emotionally driven marketing strategies, leading to higher profit margins. Consumers were willing to pay a 30% premium for the exact same product simply because of the brand's image. I, too, fell victim to this. When I was in college, I collected Supreme's Box Logo like crazy, looking back, it was a 'shame era.' I almost spent $1000 on these items, when I should have invested in ETH at that time. Fast forward to the 2020s, our world has gone completely digital, and the battle for Mindshare has shifted online. This trend was significantly accelerated during and after COVID, but its origins can be traced back to the rise of YouTubers over the past 15-20 years. Early content creators like Ryan Higa and Smosh started by producing 'fun little videos' out of interest. However, the rise of social media platforms changed everything. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, through viral effects, elevated YouTubers and independent creators to a higher status than most B-list celebrities. For example, Casey Neistat began his daily vlog in 2015. At that time, large YouTubers rarely engaged in commercial projects using their influence. However, today's MrBeast has built a multimillion-dollar commercial empire through his content distribution channels. Rhett & Link successfully acquired and expanded Mythical Entertainment Network through their YouTube audience. It is obvious that today all businesses are vying for Mindshare. Mindshare essentially represents premiums. In the modern capital market, this premium is directly reflected in your stock price or Token price. Take Tesla, for example, if Elon Musk did not frequently speak out on social media, its Market Cap might not have reached today's heights. I believe this trend will continue to develop in the next five years and will be further financialized. This also lays the foundation for what we call 'InfoFi (InfoFi).' If you understand this meme, we can be frens. What is InfoFi? InfoFi (Information Financialization) is a concept promoted by Kaito, but I believe its connotation is far broader and deeper than the initial definition. According to Grok's definition (quoting Kaito's viewpoint), InfoFi is: 'A new concept that combines financial incentives with the generation, verification, and distribution of information, mainly used in Decentralization systems. Its goal is to solve many problems in the current information economy, such as unreliable data, algorithm bias, and unfair value distribution, by introducing market mechanisms to ensure that information is more accurate, reliable, and efficiently organized and disseminated.' This definition is undoubtedly correct, but I believe the core meaning of InfoFi is more profound. Essentially, the core of InfoFi lies in the tokenization of the information Supply Chain. In other words, information is no longer just a free resource but an asset that can be valued, traded, and optimized through financial mechanisms. For a long time, the monetization of attention usually depended on building an independent product and then directing attention to that product. This model has been proven successful, for example: Food bloggers profit from recommending restaurants or seasonings (like Uncle Roger and David Chang); Fashion bloggers launch their clothing brands (like Alexa Chung and the Kardashians); Fitness bloggers promote protein powder or energy drinks (like Christian Guzman); Investors and Financial Institutions profit from selling financial products (like ARK Invest or venture capital funds for high net worth clients); Some fake financial mentors profit from trading signal groups (you know who); Some toxic male chauvinist influencers profit from pyramid schemes (you know who). However, we are now entering a new era — an era where Mindshare can be traded directly. Imagine a scenario where in the future, people no longer need to monetize attention by establishing derivative businesses but can directly invest and trade in cultural trends, narratives, or attention cycles. For example, when Labubu becomes a hot topic, there is currently no efficient way in the market for people to bet on its continued popularity. Although a memecoin named $LABUBU briefly appeared, its price trend was more influenced by the overall encryption market fluctuations rather than Labubu's own popularity or changes in Mindshare. InfoFi provides an alternative: a more direct and liquid mechanism for speculating and trading attention itself. The crucial role of trusted Oracle Machines in InfoFi To make InfoFi (Information Financialization) a mature and reliable field, a trusted Oracle Machine (Oracle) is indispensable. The main role of the Oracle Machine is to securely introduce off-chain data (such as market sentiment, social trends, etc.) into the blockchain system and ensure that the data is tamper-proof. Since the core of InfoFi revolves around trading narratives, trends, and market sentiments, real-time and accurate data feed is particularly important. Currently, Oracle Machine solutions like UMA, Chainlink, Pyth, and API3 provide critical off-chain data services for Decentralized Finance (DeFi) applications. These Oracle Machines support Decentralized Finance applications in completing settlements, verifying market trends, and aggregating price information from multiple data sources. Challenges and limitations of current Oracle Machine technology Although Decentralized Oracle Machine technology has made some progress, fully supporting I...