'While we are ready to take on the SEC in court, we underestimated the tactics they would employ,' CEO Ted Livingston said Monday, vowing the fight will continue
Lynn Johannson, Advisor, Sustainability and ESG
January 4th, 2024
Lynn Johannson, President of E2 Management Corporation and Catalyst for THE Collaboration
In a care[...]
Waterloo-based Kik shuts down signature app, lays off staff amid cryptocurrency legal battle
Financial Post | James McLeod | Sep 24, 2019
'While we are ready to take on the SEC in court, we underestimated the tactics they would employ,' CEO Ted Livingston said Monday, vowing the fight will continue
Waterloo-based Kik Interactive Inc. is shutting down its signature chat app and laying off most of its staff in order to focus on a legal battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the company’s chief executive officer said in a blog post Monday.
Ted Livingston said he was reducing the number of employees from more than 100 to 19.
The U.S. regulator has sued the company, alleging that it conducted an unregulated sale of securities when it raised around US$100 million in 2017 through an initial coin offering for its nascent cryptocurrency, Kin.
“We are all in. And despite these hard decisions my confidence in Kin only continues to grow,” Livingston said in his post. “Together we will show the power of the Kin Ecosystem. Together we will get millions of people to buy Kin to use it. And together we will build a new economy that offers equal opportunity to billions of people. Together we will win.”
Kik Messenger launched in 2010 and quickly established a sizeable user base, and according to recent court filings the service still has “millions” of active users. The company was reportedly valued at US$1 billion when it received a US$50 million investment from Chinese tech giant Tencent.
See:
Blockchain Association Takes Over Kik’s ‘Defend Crypto’ Crowdfunding Effort
The era of security tokens has begun
However, Kik struggled to generate revenue with the app, which competed with larger rivals such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. In 2017, Livingston announced a plan to launch the Kin, and essentially use the Kik user base as the launchpad to spur widespread adoption of the digital currency.
In a legal complaint earlier this year, the SEC alleged that by tying the success of the cryptocurrency to Kik’s business success, the company was effectively using the initial coin offering to sell cryptocurrency as a security without proper regulatory compliance.
In August, the company filed a blistering response, alleging that the SEC was misrepresenting key facts and taking quotes from executives out of context to create a false picture.
On Monday, Livingston again took aim at the SEC, saying that the legal fight was a major factor in the decision to shut down the Kik Messenger app.
“So with the SEC working to characterize almost all cryptocurrencies as securities we made the decision to step forward and fight,” he said.
“While we are ready to take on the SEC in court, we underestimated the tactics they would employ. How they would take our quotes out of context to manipulate the public to view us as bad actors. How they would pressure exchanges not to list Kin. And how they would draw out a long and expensive process to drain our resources.”
Continue to the full article --> here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
 |  |  |
Support NCFA by Following us on Twitter!Follow @NCFACanada  |
Related Posts
- Prompt Injection Attacks in Slack’s AI Integration
- Meet FFCON19 Featured Keynote Speaker: Dr. Dan Rosen
- Event Halifax (June 19, 2014): Business Over Breakfast: Crowdfunding for Start-Ups
- Crowdfunding: Fundamental Cases, Facts, and Insights
- Bank Shot: Canada may be a laggard, but these B.C. fintechs are ready for open banking
- Someone Just Sent $1 Billion in Bitcoin, Paid Only $3 in Fees
Leave a Reply