Canadian cryptocurrency company Kik Interactive says that the Kin ecosystem has reached over a million active-spending users, including peer-to-peer and consumer-to-business transactions across more than 80 applications.
Kin says it has about 14 million users holding its currency, making it one of the most used cryptocurrencies in the world, while having the highest transaction count to date.
“This is just the beginning. Let’s keep showing the world how crypto can be a powerful force for consumers and developers,” Kik and Kin Foundation founder Ted Livingston tweeted.
In the last month over one million people spent kin across 80 different apps. That took a huge amount of work from everyone in the Ecosystem. Congratulations! This is just the beginning. Let’s keep showing the world how crypto can be a powerful force for consumers and developers https://t.co/1Yoe59hz4B
— Ted Livingston (@ted_livingston) November 15, 2019
In September, the company announced that it was shutting down its Kik chat app, reducing its headcount to 19 from more than 200 employees, to focus solely on the Kin cryptocurrency, as prepared to fight against the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in court.
A total of 51 former Kik employees were hired by Carta on October 15, while the messaging app was acquired by US-based holding company MediaLab on October 18, just a day before it was set to shut down.
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The SEC began investigating both Kik and the Kin Foundation after Kik officially launched Kin cryptocurrency in 2017. In June 2018, when the SEC officially filed its lawsuit, it dropped the investigation into the Kin Foundation, and instead focused on Kik and its initial coin offering, which raised $157 million CAD.
In its filing, the SEC accused Kik of misleading investors about the nature of Kin and violating regulations by selling Kin without registering the token as a security. In May, Kik launched a “Defend Crypto” fund to take on the SEC, committing $5 million. Kik filed its response in August, accusing the SEC of mispresenting evidence.
Kik also announced this week that it has allocated $250,000 USD to fund an employee compensation program via the acquisition of Kin in open market purchases. The company says the acquired cryptocurrency will be distributed to employees as part of their compensation over the next 12 months.