Kik closes down to fight SEC says the team behind the messaging app. In a blog post, the founder explains how the SEC court case is a money drain forcing them to close down the popular messaging app.
Kik lets you connect with friends, groups and the world around you through chat. Just ask, “What’s your Kik?” Kik is available on most iOS, Android, and Windows Phone devices. Kik is free to download. When you use Kik, data charges might apply. Nobody from Kik will ever ask you for payment methods or money.
SEC and Kin
Kin is the digital currency which was used inside Kik messaging. It is a cryptocurrency on a blockchain open to all. Currently, 1 Kin is worth $0.000008 USD.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission has been trying to get all cryptocurrencies to register as securities rather than currencies. After multiple sessions together, the SEC would not budge from their position forcing Kin to take the matter to court.
Ted Livingston, the CEO and founder of Kik and Kin, thought the matter would be settled in a years time. However, the case dragged on causing the business to crash. The company had to make a decision. Either give in to the SEC demand or consolidate funds and keep fighting. The company decided to keep fighting the case. According to Ted, three things are to be done to keep going –
- Shut down the Kik app
- Reduce the headcount to an elite 19 person team
- Focus on one thing: converting Kin users into Kin buyers
These changes will drop the burn rate by 85% allowing the company to see the case through.
The allegation by the SEC is that the ICO or Initial Coin Offering was not legal. They have stopped Kin from being listed on most exchanges.
Moving Forward
These are hard decisions. Kik is one of the largest apps in the US. It has industry leading engagement and is growing again. Over 100 employees and their families will be impacted.
Kin operates on an open, decentralized infrastructure run by a dozen independent companies. Kin is a currency used by millions of people in dozens of independent apps. So while the SEC might be able to slow them down, taking on the broader Kin Ecosystem could survive.
Today most cryptocurrencies rely on speculative demand from exchanges to fuel their crypto business models. But Kin isn’t available on most exchanges, so they can’t rely on speculative demand. Instead they need to become the first project that creates real demand by getting people to buy Kin to use it.
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.
Going forward the 19 person team will be focused on one goal: getting millions of people to buy Kin to use it. They aim to achieve this goal by executing a three part strategy:
- Moving the Kin blockchain forward to support a billion consumers making a dozen transactions a day with sub 1 second confirmation times
- Accelerating the adoption, growth, and success of all developers in the Kin Ecosystem
- Building a mobile wallet that makes it easy to buy Kin, exciting to use Kin, and seamless to explore the Kin Ecosystem
History
Kik was founded in 2009 by a small but passionate group of University of Waterloo students. At the time, chat between Blackberry, Android and iPhone users wasn’t possible, so they wanted to break down barriers and build a company that would allow users to chat with whoever, whenever.
