The End of InfoFi?
X killed InfoFi? No, Only the End of Platform Dependency
With recent changes to X’s API policies, debates around InfoFi and social-based engagement models have resurfaced.
Some voices are quick to conclude that InfoFi is dead.
That conclusion is only partially correct.
What has truly ended is not InfoFi itself, but an era in which participation, verification, and rewards were all built on top of a single centralized platform.
This moment marks a structural reset, not an ideological failure.
For context on the policy shift and its implications:
X policy discussion:
1. The Problem Was Not InfoFi, It Was the Design
InfoFi begins with people, not platforms.
Participants do not engage only because of rewards. They engage because they want their actions to matter and to be recorded in a way that feels fair and credible.
The real issue was architectural.
Many projects attempted to capture this human motivation through a single point of dependency: the X Developer API. When that foundation moved, the entire system built on top of it became unstable.
This was not a failure of participation-based finance. It was a failure of design choices.
This risk has already been outlined in industry analysis and coverage:
[Relevant press release on platform dependency]
2. X’s Strategic Pivot and the Restoration of Signal Quality
X describes its recent changes as quality protection. In practice, the goal is broader.
The platform is dismantling an ecosystem shaped by manufactured incentives rather than genuine participation.
AI-generated content, automated replies, and repetitive actions driven purely by rewards inflated surface-level metrics, but they also diluted trust and discoverability.
X is shifting its internal logic. The platform is no longer optimizing for how much is being said, but for what is being repeated and for what reason.
This is not a cosmetic adjustment. It is a systemic correction.
3. The Collapse of the Incentive Layer, Not the Data Layer
The revocation of Developer API access represents more than a policy update. It is a structural signal.
What collapsed was a value chain built on leasing platform data to manufacture engagement loops.
A key misunderstanding remains, however.
X has not eliminated data usage.
Data analysis, social listening, trend detection, and brand research remain legitimate and necessary. What X rejected were incentive layers that extracted value from the platform by encouraging artificial behavior at scale.
The distinction matters. Data remains valuable. Manufactured incentives do not.
Background and official announcement:
4. The Evolution of InfoFi Toward Verifiable Quality
The demand for InfoFi has not disappeared. It has matured.
Teams still need meaningful engagement and fair evaluation, but expectations have shifted. The next phase of InfoFi emphasizes three core principles:
First, quality over volume. Verified participation matters more than raw exposure.
Second, structural resilience. Systems must remain functional even when platform policies change.
Third, web-native execution. Engagement should not be confined to a single feed but should treat the entire web as the environment for interaction.
This is where InfoFi transitions from a platform tactic into an infrastructure question.
5. GrowlOps and Sela Network as the New Standard
In this changing landscape, GrowlOps, built by Sela Network, takes a fundamentally different approach from legacy incentive platforms.
GrowlOps as the User Layer
GrowlOps does not manufacture behavior or encourage social farming. Instead, it structures how existing attention and real messages are amplified.
The closest analogy is search optimization. SEO improves how content is discovered without fabricating demand. GrowlOps applies the same principle to social and web engagement, operating within platform rules and amplifying organic behavior rather than manipulating it.
More details on how GrowlOps works in practice:
GrowlOps product overview:
Sela Network as the Infrastructure Layer
This shift is only possible because of the underlying infrastructure.
Sela Network provides a decentralized web interaction layer powered by distributed nodes. These nodes execute real web actions and collect verifiable signals without relying on a single platform API.
This allows teams to redesign campaigns, research pipelines, and engagement workflows on top of the web itself rather than on fragile platform permissions.
Explore the infrastructure in more detail:
Conclusion: Are You Standing on a Platform or on the Web?
We do not build spam-driven reward systems or policy-evading automation. Our focus remains on policy-aware usage, responsible automation, and resilience across multiple sources.
InfoFi is not dead.
What ended was the assumption that one platform should control participation, verification, and value distribution.
A workflow tied to a single API can break overnight. A structure grounded in the open web does not.
The question is no longer how to farm a platform.
The real question is whether you are still standing on a single platform or whether you are ready to stand on the open web.
Sela Network exists to help teams make that transition.