The recent fight between messaging service Kik Interactive Inc. and the SEC is taking an ugly turn now as the founder and head of Kik; Ted Livingston is ready to fight the company into bankruptcy. This fight is taking place over Kin cryptocurrency that Kik launched in 2017.
On Wednesday at the Elevate conference, Ted confronted everyone about how he is ready to fight the SEC regulators till they run out of money, employees, and every resource that they have. This statement came two days after the announcement in which Kik Interactive explained how they are cutting its staff and shutting down the Kik Messenger app. They have decided to focus their efforts on Kin cryptocurrency.
Kik was accused of conducting an illegal $100 million securities offering when it initially sold Kin cryptocurrency. However, they have marked these as false accusations as the currency rollout was never meant to be a security offering. The reason behind this fight is that if a cryptocurrency is launched as a security offering, then the regulations take over and it becomes no longer workable. In this case, the company will have no way to make money for their profit.
After-effects of the lawsuit on Kik
The lawsuit with SEC has left the Kin cryptocurrency suffering as its adoption has slowed down and now only 60 apps support it. The lack of resources and funding in the company from Kin and Kik Messaging lead to the cut down in the team. The number reduced from 151 to just 19 people.
Tanner Philip, the technical advisor at Kik and Kin, sent an email in which he mentioned how efforts are being put to keep the Kik team intact and move them to a new company setting in Waterloo. The 19 people who are still part of the company will focus on helping people buy Kin cryptocurrency, which can be earned by people by taking part in surveys or polls.
