Kik CEO vows to fight SEC over Kin crypto until 'we don't have a dollar left'

Cryptocurrency • September 26, 2019, 5:05AM EDT
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Kik founder and CEO, Ted Livingston, has said that he is ready to keep fighting with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over Kin, the firm’s native cryptocurrency.

“We have to keep going. Until that’s it, we don’t have a dollar left, a person left. We will keep going no matter how hard it is,” Livingston said at the Elevate conference in Toronto on Wednesday, as reported by The Canadian Press.

In 2017, Kik raised $100 million in an initial coin offering (ICO) via kin tokens. The SEC believes that the company issued unregistered securities, while Livingston says the tokens are so-called "utility" tokens. Kik also wants to test if the SEC has jurisdiction over Kik as it is the Canadian company.

Livingston’s comments come two days after he announced the closure of popular messaging app Kik and laying off at least 100 people. He said at the time that the company will now focus on “one thing: converting Kin users into Kin buyers,” adding: “No matter what happens to Kik, Kin is here to stay.”

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Yogita Khatri profile picture Yogita Khatri

Yogita Khatri is a senior reporter at The Block and the author of The Funding newsletter. As our longest-serving editorial member, Yogita has been instrumental in breaking numerous stories, exclusives and scoops. With over 3,000 articles to her name, Yogita is The Block's most-published and most-read author of all time. Before joining The Block, Yogita wrote for CoinDesk and The Economic Times. You can reach her at [email protected] or follow her latest updates on X at @Yogita_Khatri5.

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