Chronicles of the Mouth: From Private Domain to Public Domain, and the Battle of AI's Sword and Shield

This evolution of "mouth play" driven by technological change is not only an upgrade of tools and platforms, but also a deep excavation and value reconstruction of "attention," the core scarce resource of the digital economy.

Written by: JTSong

Mouth Licking in the NFT Era: Discord Whitelist

Background: The Value and Scarcity of Whitelists

In the world of NFTs, a "whitelist" is a privilege certificate granted to specific users before a project's official public sale. It represents a qualification that allows the holder to mint one or more NFTs at a more favorable price (usually well below the public sale price) or a guaranteed spot within a specified time.

The value of this list lies in its absolute scarcity and potential high returns.

For early supporters, the whitelist is a direct reward from the project team for their loyalty and contributions. For investors, it is a "first-class ticket" to acquire high-potential assets at a low cost. In a frenzied market, the price difference for a whitelist qualification can soar from hundreds of dollars to thousands of dollars, providing significant arbitrage opportunities. For the project team, the whitelist is an effective means of precisely screening core users, accumulating initial momentum, and conducting stress tests before the launch.

Operation Model: "Liver White" - Human Resource Intensive Community Contribution

The process of obtaining a whitelist is vividly referred to in the community as "grinding for whitelist," with the word "grind" encapsulating the intense investment of time and energy. The main battlefield of this "grind emperor" game is Discord.

The reason it is Discord lies in its unique platform characteristics: it is not an open public square, but rather a series of independent, closed servers. This structure is naturally suitable for building high-sticky, high-consensus "private domain" communities, where project parties can set their own rules and create a unique cultural atmosphere.

The core methodology of "ganbai", commonly known as "mouth-based three axes":

• Building Presence (Chat-to-Earn): This is the most basic and time-consuming part. Users need to maintain high-frequency, high-quality speech in the project's Discord channel. This is not just simple spamming; it requires actively participating in discussions, answering newcomers' questions, and expressing a deep understanding of the project.
• Task-to-Earn: The project team will release a series of clear tasks as quantifiable indicators of contribution, such as inviting new members, promoting on social media, and participating in community activities.
• Showcase Talent (Create-to-Earn): For users with special skills, this is a shortcut to stand out. Prove your value through content creation such as making memes, writing analyses, and drawing fan art.

Ultimately, becoming a community-recognized OG (Original Gangster), that is, the project's "founding-level" fans, is the highest honor and the most reliable way to obtain a whitelist.

Essential Analysis: Refined Operation of Private Domain Traffic

The essence of the "Discord Zui Lu" model is a refined operation system based on private domain traffic. It may seem chaotic and disordered, but it actually contains a profound core spirit of Web3.

It is a loyalty filter: through high time costs and task requirements, the project party filters out not speculators, but true core believers who identify with the project culture and are willing to contribute.

It is a decentralized marketing: the project team transforms thousands of community members into "natural promoters" through incentive mechanisms, forming a viral marketing network.

It is a system based on "human governance": the final distribution of rewards heavily relies on the subjective judgment of the project parties and administrators, filled with "human touch", but also leaves room for unfairness and rent-seeking.

Mouth Licking in the AI Era: Infofi

Analyze how Infofi (Information Finance) utilizes AI to liberate the "mouth stroking" behavior from private domains to public domains, and to financialize and scale it, forming a new paradigm of "content mining."

The Rise of Concepts: Infofi (Information Finance) and Attention Economy

With the penetration of AI technology, the "mouth-to-mouth" ecosystem of Web3 has welcomed a fundamental transformation. A new track named Infofi (Information Finance) has quietly emerged.

The core理念 of Infofi is: to transform intangible cognition, perspectives, and attention into quantifiable, assessable, and tradable financial assets through AI and blockchain technology.

Behind this paradigm is a profound insight into the "attention economy." Infofi firmly believes in one principle: attention precedes price. The value of a project or concept is first reflected in how much market attention it can capture.

Operating Model: "Content Mining" - AI-driven Value Discovery

Infofi has moved the main battleground of "Zui Lu" from a closed Discord server to an open public social platform, especially X (formerly Twitter). Its core methodology has also been upgraded to "content mining":

• platform (The Arena): Centered around Infofi platforms such as Kaito AI, users connect social accounts to authorize the platform to read content.
• 行为 (The Action): Publish high-quality, insightful content (Yap) and engage with high-impact accounts.
• Evaluation (The Oracle): AI algorithms replace manual assessment, quantifying scores from multiple dimensions such as content quality, social influence, and interaction data.
• Incentive (The Reward): Points are directly linked to rewards such as token airdrops, achieving "Content-is-Mining."

Ecology and Financialization: From "Mouth Lifting" to "Cognitive Assets"

Infofi is not a single model, but rather has built a vast ecosystem around "information financialization."

In this ecosystem, users' social behaviors are thoroughly financialized, accumulating into a predictable and quantifiable cognitive asset.

Comparative Analysis: Discord Zui Lu vs. Infofi Zui Lu

Through multidimensional comparisons, reveal the fundamental differences between the two models in underlying logic, value capture, and ecological forms, clearly outlining the evolution from "private domain" to "public domain."

The Mouth Play of the Future Era: Bridging the Value Gap, the Game of AI and AI, Humanity and AI Content, Attention is Money

With the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology, we are standing at a critical point of a huge change in content production and consumption patterns. This competition for attention will enter an unprecedentedly complex stage.

The biggest problem with the "mouth stroke" model is that it draws an insurmountable chasm between attention and real value. Massive traffic data cannot be directly equated with the success of a project; behind it are three core "conversion failures."

Purchasing Power**

Users come for "撸毛", not driven by real demand. Once they obtain the tokens, due to the lack of actual use cases and long-term holding motivation, the vast majority choose to sell immediately, failing to form effective purchasing power support.

Community Contribution**

The interactive content generated by "Zui Lu" still lacks Depth. This interaction cannot be transformed into in-depth community discussions, valuable product feedback, or constructive participation in decentralized governance.

Ecological Moat**

The inflated mention volume on social media cannot build a real network effect or technological barrier. The project's value foundation is unstable, like being built on sand dunes, and it may collapse with a gust of wind.

The fundamental reason for this gap lies in the serious mismatch between the incentive mechanism and real value creation —

• Lack of user screening mechanism: The current "Zui Lu" model cannot effectively distinguish between "Speculators" and "Builders."
• Short-term orientation: Project parties pursue short-term hype before TGE, while users seek short-term gains from airdrops. Both sides lack a consensus foundation for establishing long-term relationships, leading to fragile relationships that can collapse at any moment.
• Ecological Vulnerability: Once the KOL exits or the incentive policy stops, the community activity based on traffic KOL will rapidly collapse, and the project will face a crisis of large-scale user loss.

In recent days, many KOLs have been discussing the controversy over the $700,000 bonus for the @memeX project: there is too little truly valuable information, the rankings are chaotic, and how effective and sustainable is this amount of reward?

The Game of AI vs. AI: The Arms Race of Algorithms

When project parties deploy AI to identify and filter high-quality content, while users generally utilize AI to generate content in bulk, an "AI vs. AI" algorithmic confrontation will be inevitable. This will lead to an endless arms race in the information domain, where evaluation criteria will shift from the "quantity" of interactions to the pursuit of "quality" in terms of "information increment," "cognitive penetration," and "emotional resonance."

Value of Human Creators: Proof of Humanity

In a future where AI-generated content is rampant, the value of content that is truly created by humans, imbued with unique emotions, depth of thought, and irreproducible creativity, will be unprecedentedly highlighted. This "soulful" content will enjoy a premium due to its scarcity and will be able to establish emotional connections that AI cannot replicate. To this end, the "Proof of Humanity" mechanism, based on DID, SBT, behavioral pattern verification, and community curation, will become crucial.

In the future, it is expected to build a multi-dimensional "proof of humanity" system through decentralized identity, biometric verification, and behavioral pattern analysis, to identify and reward original human content.

The Endgame of Attention Economy: "Attention is Money"

The concept of "attention is money" will transform from a metaphor into a more concrete financialized form. It will give rise to a more complex and refined attention trading market, including refined bidding for "effective attention," content futures/options trading, and the assetization of personal attention.

Conclusion: The Value Discovery and Capture of Effective Attention

From the pursuit of whitelists in the NFT era's Discord "嘴撸" to the financialization of content by Infofi in the AI era, and then to the ultimate form of "attention is money" in the future, the core driving force behind this series of evolutions has always been the discovery and capture of the value of "effective attention."

Evolution Path Overview:

• Private Domain Labor: Exchange non-standard "opportunity vouchers" through labor-intensive input.
• Public Domain Infofi: Using AI algorithms to convert content into quantifiable "cognitive assets."
• Future Attention Economy: Pursuing "Real, Depth, Emotional" "Effective Attention" and highly financializing it.

Ultimately, this evolution of "mouth licking" driven by technological transformation is not only an upgrade of tools and platforms, but also a deep exploration and value reconstruction of "attention," the core scarce resource of the digital economy. In the future, whoever can more effectively capture and transform this attention will possess the ultimate wealth and influence in the digital world.