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.
The move comes after a battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission — a June lawsuit claimed Kik failed to properly register its initial coin offering, which raised $100 million, CNN reports. Kin "is a currency used by millions of people in dozens of independent apps," according to Livingston.
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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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