A judge approved the agreement between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Kik, the developer of the messenger, in the 2017 token sale case. The company believe that the decision signals that charges for violating the Kin token’s securities laws have been dropped and removes obstacles to trading the asset.
Canadian company will pay a $5 million fine. It also commits to reporting to the regulator any transactions involving Kin reserves held in custody within 45 days, for the next three years.
“In short, with Kik, all will be well. Aside from the monetary penalty, assets remain in the company’s ownership, including Kin reserves. Thanks to the agreement, developers will continue active development of the Kin SDK with open-source and a new application for the Code wallet,” the company said.
The messenger’s leadership believes the court’s ruling could alter exchange attitudes toward Kin listing.
“The SEC did not seek to register Kin as a security. Before the ruling, opportunities for listing Kin on leading exchanges looked limited. Now we can obtain listings on platforms that had previously shown such interest,” the company said.
The blog mentions plans for Kik to appoint a new chief executive in November and to carry out in December the planned transition to the Solana blockchain. The company notes sustained high community activity.
In 2017 the company raised $98 million in an ICO to develop Kin and the Kin ecosystem. In 2019 the US regulator accused Kik of an unregistered sale of securities.
In October 2020 the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that Kik’s token sale violated the Securities Act.
Earlier, Kik’s CEO Ted Livingston pledged to fight the SEC “to the last dollar,” even if that would lead to bankruptcy. This followed a decision to suspend the messenger’s operations and cut staff to marshal financial resources to continue the battle with the regulator.
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