Canadian communications company Kik launched its Kin cryptocurrency token two years ago with an initial coin offering reportedly valued at $100 million.
Leadership teams explained to the public at the time that the Kin token was supposed to “bring people together in a new shared economy” by providing a decentralized system true to traditional blockchain ledger technology philosophies. It was a heady idea, but it hasn’t exactly worked out that way.
Now, Kik is embroiled in an ongoing battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which has slow-walked many a crypto project, and new reports show CEO Ted Livingston and others are ready to go to the mat and fight to the end to get the token classified as an asset rather than a security.
“We have to keep going,” Livingston told the audience at Toronto’s Elevate Conference Sept,. 25, according to Cointelegraph. “Until that’s it (sic), we don’t have a dollar left, a person left. We will keep going no matter how hard it is.”
As for a deadline, Cointelegraph’s Marie Huillet reports Kik wants to start the trial process as soon as May 2020, the same month that the crypto community is waiting for the famed Bitcoin reward halving process to take effect.
Here’s what one commenter on Huillet’s piece had to say about the Kik CEO’s commitment to keep pushing the token forward against SEC reservations.
“Where does the crypto community’s arrogance (sic) come from, the best strategy is to keep us as a crypto community against governments,” wrote mark okko. “We are still an ant, how can an ant beat an elephant?”
Amid labor cuts and other problems, Kik is now going all in, trying to navigate its regulatory environment. We’ll see how that goes.