Updated – The source we referred for this article was a victim of a deception and with the Kik CEO’s latest claim, the Kik Messaging App has no such plans of shutting down and is not giving up its fight with US regulators anytime soon.
United States’ Securities and Exchange Commission has long been hesitant with the Kik’s Initial Coin Offering (ICO) of its digital token, called, Kin. Following the ongoing dispute, the Kik’s CEO says that they’re shutting down its messaging app which currently has 300 million active users.
Kik Interactive Decides to Shut Down Kik Messaging App
One specific reason that Kik CEO Ted Livingston said in a blog post today, SEC have left no option than shutting down its messaging app. The firm blames stern legal actions and procedures of the US SEC. He writes in a blog post,
“All is not well. This is a direct impact from the SEC’s legal action.”
In its essence, Kik messenger is a Canadian freeware instant messaging mobile app launched by Kik Interactive. The app serves hundreds of millions of users on both iOS as well as Android platforms. However, with the shutdown decision, the firm will, of course, upset its existing users but the decision was taken with the consideration of ongoing dispute with US SEC, the firm said.
Kik was first caught by SEC when it had raised $100 million through a 2017 ICO of its digital token Kin. While many other projects also raised millions from the crypto market in the same year, notably when the bitcoin price was trading at a peak of around $19800 against USD, SEC alleges ‘Kik raised such funds against the unregistered securities’. However, the firm denied the claim of SEC and has been fighting against SEC ever since it sued Kik. As part of SEC,
Kik deprived investors of information to which they were legally entitled and prevented investors from making informed investment decisions.”
On the other side, Kik bashed at SEC’s work mechanism and says that SEC’s claim is out of context. The lawyer represented Kik further asserted that since the regulator lacks strong evidence of their claim, they are twisting the fact and misrepresenting the information to support their allegation. Later with the spirit to win the battle, Kik launched $5 million crypto initiative to fund its lawsuit case against the SEC but the latest decision of Kik has surprised its fans.
Unfortunately, the firm will now have to let go of its 70 employees and around 300 million users, most of whom are teenagers.
It’s worth noting that SEC’s key concern is that “they believe Kin is a security’, on the contrary, the Kik Interactive CEO Ted Livingston refutes, stating;
“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 and becoming a security would kill the usability of any cryptocurrency and set a dangerous precedent for the industry,”
While it is shutting down Kik, it says that the firm will majorly focus on scaling kin token at a larger scale. Livingston says that their significant effort will be to ensure that “KIK can scale to become the true currency of the internet going forward: With that aim, CEO continued;
“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.”
Image Source – Flickr
Notice: Information contained herein is not and should not be construed as an offer, solicitation, or recommendation to buy or sell securities. The information has been obtained from sources we believe to be reliable; however no guarantee is made or implied with respect to its accuracy, timeliness, or completeness. Authors may own the crypto currency they discuss. The information and content are subject to change without notice. Visionary Financial and its affiliates do not provide investment, tax, legal or accounting advice. This material has been prepared for informational purposes only and is the opinion of the author, and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for, investment, tax, legal, accounting advice. You should consult your own investment, tax, legal and accounting advisors before engaging in any transaction. All content published by Visionary Financial is not an endorsement whatsoever. Visionary Financial was not compensated to submit this article Please also visit our Privacy policy; disclaimer; and terms and conditions page for further information.
