Kik has announced that its token distribution event (TDE) will begin on Tuesday, September 12, 2017.
Kik is looking to raise a total of $157 million CAD, and sell one trillion tokens. Kik has already closed a presale round of $63 million CAD to select accredited investors, including Blockchain Capital, Pantera Capital, and Polychain Capital, which comprised 488 billion Kin tokens at a 30 percent discount. The company plans to raise $94 million CAD from the remaining 512 billion Kin tokens.
“We’re one step closer to launching Kin and integrating it into Kik, which will be the first mainstream adoption of cryptocurrency,” said Ted Livingston, founder and CEO of Kik. “Kin will fuel new experiences in communications, information, and commerce inside of Kik, and will also serve as a foundation for a new decentralized ecosystem of digital services, bringing a fair and sustainable business model to the market.”
Once the registration process is complete, the company plans to take the $94 million CAD allocation, and divide it by the total number of successful registrations to give a maximum participation cap for each registered participant. The company will then email everyone who registered to let them know what the maximum participation cap per participant is.
Participants will then have 24 hours to send ether from the Ethereum address they provided during registration, which Kik says will guarantee that not all of the $94 million will be sold, as any registered participants who decide not to participate or decide not to participate at the maximum participation cap will result in unsold tokens. The remaining tokens will be sold in a subsequent sale for registered participants who would like to buy more than the maximum participation cap.
Kik first announced plans to launch Kin in May 2017, and plans to launch it as the transaction currency inside the Kik app. The company has millions of monthly users on the app, and hopes to drive mainstream user adoption of cryptocurrency.
Last week, Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) cautioned companies launching ICOs to consider securities laws, as many ICOs it reviewed so far has constituted securities.
“We’re doing a lot of work to make sure our token is classified as a utility token, as opposed to a security (this is done via the Howey Test). Our plans have not changed in light of either ruling,” Kik communications manager Ashley Goldstein told BetaKit.
“Kik is by far the largest consumer company to enter the cryptocurrency space, and this is a seminal moment for the industry,” said Ryan Zurrer, principal and venture partner at cryptocurrency hedge fund Polychain Capital. “We have been impressed with Kik’s thoughtful approach to the creation and distribution of Kin, and have confidence that the team will execute their vision of creating a decentralized ecosystem of digital services through Kin.”
The TDE begins at 9 a.m. on September 12. Anyone interested in registering for the TDE can sign up here.
