Messenger app Kik was valued at $1 billion in 2015. Now it's shutting down.

Ted Livingston.
(Image credit: Noam Galai/Getty Images)

Kik is pivoting.

The tech "unicorn" will shut down its messaging app to focus on its cryptocurrency, Kin, CEO Ted Livingston announced in a Medium post Monday afternoon.

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The company could have labeled Kin a security, but chose instead to fight the SEC, Livingston wrote, which has drained its resources. Now, the company's staff will be cut from more than 100 to 19 people, who will focus on a single goal: "getting millions of people to buy Kin to use it."

Launched in 2010, Kik was an anonymous messaging platform that had hundreds of millions of users and once earned a private market valuation of $1 billion, reports CNN.

"But no matter what happens to Kik, Kin is here to stay," Livingston wrote. Read more at CNN.

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Taylor Watson

Taylor Watson is audience engagement editor for TheWeek.com and a former editorial assistant. She graduated from Syracuse University, with a major in magazine journalism and minors in food studies and nutrition. Taylor has previously written for Runner's World, Vice, and more.