Ted Livingston, the CEO of Canadian-based messaging powerhouse Kik, recently revealed the Ontario-based company spent over $5 million on ongoing negotiations with the United States Securities Exchange Commission (SEC). As of May 2016, Kik Messenger had approximately 300 million registered users and was used by approximately 40% of United States teenagers. In 2017, they raised $98 million in an initial coin offering (ICO) to support its kin cryptocurrency and ecosystem, but they have been at loggerheads with the SEC ever since.
But $5 million has proven not to be enough and Livingston and his team have reached out to the community to help raise another $5 million to fight the SEC. They already raised more than $5 million since announcing last week.
Livingston, in a recent interview with Coindesk – CEO Ted Livingston and Patrick Gibbs, a partner at law firm Cooley LLP, announced on the UnChained Podcast Tuesday, the campaign is being launched in the hopes that:
“…a lawsuit would eventually result in a new Howey test for crypto tokens, to determine which ones are a security.”
Defend Crypto, a new website has been set up for supporters to contribute to the fundraising effort not just for Kik but also into the future for other companies.
