Kaito AI’s new browser extension, Kaito Pulse, has been open-sourced and submitted to Google for Chrome Web Store review, following a rapid-fire controversy that erupted almost immediately after its August 18 launch.
The speed of that turnaround tells you something: founder Yu Hu committed to releasing the code publicly just one day after privacy concerns surfaced, on August 19.
What Kaito Pulse actually does
Think of Kaito Pulse as a fact-checker layered over your X timeline. Instead of taking a trader’s word for their calls, the extension pulls their actual public position data from Polymarket and Hyperliquid and overlays it directly onto your feed.
The underlying mechanism uses zero-knowledge Transport Layer Security proofs, or zkTLS, a cryptographic approach that lets the extension verify someone’s trading activity without exposing the raw account data behind it. In practical terms, that means you can see whether the person confidently calling a trade actually has skin in the game, without the extension needing to read their private account credentials.
The extension is offered by Kaito Pte. Ltd. and weighs in at around 10.69 MB. According to its data disclosures, it collects user activity and website content but does not sell that data outside approved use cases.
Alongside Pulse, Kaito also unveiled Aura, a reputation layer designed to score users’ influence using a mix of on- and off-platform metrics. The idea is to ground reputation in validated actions rather than follower counts alone. Neither Pulse nor Aura comes with a new token attached.
The privacy problem that forced the open-source move
The launch did not go smoothly. An analyst review flagged that the extension uses device fingerprinting as part of its anti-abuse measures, alongside logging of X activity. That combination raised immediate red flags in a community that is, for understandable historical reasons, sensitive about surveillance tooling dressed up as utility.
Device fingerprinting is essentially a way of creating a unique identifier for your browser and hardware without using cookies. It works even if you clear your browser history, which is part of why it makes people uncomfortable. Critics pointed out that a tool pitching itself on privacy credentials while quietly fingerprinting devices was a tension worth examining.
Yu Hu’s response was to commit to open-sourcing the code the following day. As of August 21, the repository is public and Google’s review of the Chrome extension is ongoing, which is standard procedure for any extension submitted to the Web Store.