The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will carry on its investigation of the Kik chat platform, summoning the company’s head of operations and technical adviser, Tanner Philp, to sit for a deposition on January 29.
Kik was founded in 2009 by a small but passionate group of University of Waterloo students. This chat platform was created specifically for teenagers.
SEC demands Kik’s business history before 2018
After the initial information on the SEC lawsuit against Kik, the US agency says that it needs a new attestation to know more details of the company’s business before 2018. The deposition was acquiescent by Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein despite the objection of Kik for this.
The hearings are being prepared for this January 29 in accordance with SEC’s demand for more evidence of the company’s business, intentions, and achievements. The SEC also wants to know about the new Kik-associated company, Code Inc.
Ted Livingston, founder and CEO of Kik, vehemently claimed the SEC does not have jurisdiction over the KIN digital coin. He responded to the SEC lawsuit that he hopes this case will make it clear that the securities laws should not be applied to a currency used by millions of people in dozens of apps.
If the SEC had a strong case they would have let the facts speak for themselves. Instead the SEC repeatedly twisted the facts, in an attempt to continue to divide and conquer our industry. This dirty play is why it is time to come together to #defendcrypto https://t.co/kztVeCH9HQ
— Ted Livingston (@ted_livingston) August 7, 2019
The digital asset announced dead after no real interest, saw its value drop almost to zero after Kik closed its flagship app. Now, KIN, a new business model, is in a limbo, thinly traded on CoinTiger and Fatbtc. The coin’s lowest price of $0.000006, but allow for some short-term speculation. The current prices are more than 20 times lower in comparison to the 2017 Kik’s price at the ICO.
Kik used to be one of the biggest token sellers during one of the hottest times of the bull market in 2017. The asset was very promising and managed to gain above $70 million from around 10,000 investors worldwide. After catching the eye of the SEC, the token sale did not last long before the regulator accused the project of running an unregistered security offering.
Kik was revived and got a new owner
The main statements against Kik were that its Kik Messenger had fallen on hard times and the ICO was the only way to boost the failing business model. However, KIN was added and did not manage to boost the ecosystem. Although Kik has been bought by MediaLab, the lawsuit was not dismissed.
For now, Kik has kept silent, with no new moves. The token still manages 1.4 million transactions per day, which cannot be explained by organic demand. Medialab has also offered to buy back remaining KIN tokens on the open market and plans to develop both Kik and KIN. Moreover, KIN has also moved to a new blockchain and is no longer an Ethereum-based token.
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