- Kik will soon be terminated due to disputes with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
- While the app is shutting down, the core developer team is focused on developing the KIN token, says Kik CEO.
Ted Livingston, CEO of Kik Interactive, announced that the firm will be shutting down its core messaging service. In a company blog post, he said that due to ongoing battles with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Kik has been forced to discontinue its services.
Livingston wrote:
“After 18 months of working with the SEC the only choice they gave us was to either label Kin a security or fight them in court. So with the SEC working to characterize almost all cryptocurrencies as securities we made the decision to step forward and fight.”
In addition to terminating the app, Livingston noted that the firm would shrink its crypto operations to 19 core developers, focusing on boosting the adoption of Kik’s KIN cryptocurrency. He added:
“Kin has over 2,000,000 monthly active earners, and 600,000 monthly active spenders. While losing Kik will have a big impact on these numbers, the continued growth of the Kin Ecosystem has more than made up for it.”
At present, Kik is in a protracted battle with the SEC concerning the initial coin offering of the KIN token in 2017. The SEC claims that the $100 million raised by the ICO was an unregistered securities offering. Since these allegations in June, KIN has dropped from $0.000036 to $0.0000105, according to Messari. While the app is shutting down, Livingston said that the core developer team is focused on developing the KIN token. Q
Livingston wrote:
“Kin is a currency used by millions of people in dozens of independent apps. So while the SEC might be able to push us around, taking on the broader Kin Ecosystem will be a much bigger fight. And the Ecosystem is close to adding a lot more firepower.”
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