It was announced a few hours ago by the Kik team, a company that had recently launched an ICO for a messaging application, which, as a result of the SEC’s requirement to become a security in order to continue operating, decided to close its operations.
As can be read from the press release, the SEC decided, after 18 months from the start of their ICO project, to give them two choices: either to become a security or to face the court, which led Kik to close the project, but not because they were not ready to face it – explains the team – but because the SEC would use subtle tactics to try to put them in trouble, as reiterated by the CEO, Ted Livingston:
“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”.
Following the decision, the team will take some measures to limit its reach, starting with shutting down the Kik app, reducing their staff to only 19 people and focusing on converting Kin users into Kin buyers.
Unfortunately, Kin has more than 2 million users per month and the KIN token has suffered a double-digit drop of 23%, bringing it to $0.000010. The project is currently at position 373 on CoinMarketCap.
As seen, the SEC is very strict on the use of crypto and is always oriented to seeing them as securities, with all that it entails for companies operating in this sector.
In the past, the SEC has also closed other projects such as Protostarr or Basis stablecoin.