Live data from Hacker News

SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO

sec.gov

111–120 of 343 posts

Re: SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO

#111
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well a messenger app for 8 years, but that's not really what the lawsuit is about.

They want to add payments to their messenger app. That's a known business model and a hot area right now - WeChat pioneered it, Line does it too, and Facebook is working on a cryptocurrency-based solution that does the same thing.

true, but their primary user base is teens that barely have a credit card.

Re: SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO

#112

What work is “officially” doing in the HN headline? Is there a practice of “unofficial lawsuits” by the SEC, or in general, that it is necessary to distinguish this “official” suit from?

Sort of. It's called a Wells Notice[1] and it essentially means that (barring some really excellent lawyering) charges are imminent.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_notice

Re: SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO

#113
post #2

"The complaint further alleges that Kik marketed the Kin tokens as an investment opportunity. Kik allegedly told investors that rising demand would drive up the value of Kin, and that Kik would undertake crucial work to spur that demand, including by incorporating the tokens into its messaging app, creating a new Kin transaction service, and building a system to reward other companies that adopt Kin. At the time Kik…

> scam ICO It seems like you might of repeated yourself... This is the cryptocurrency roosters coming home to roost, no?

ICO is a fancy word for "Kick Starter" or crowdfunding. That's why all the crypto people are disagreeing with you.

Are most ICO's scams? Yeah sadly. Are there lots of scams on Kickstarter/indiegogo/etc? Yes sadly.

But an ICO itself isn't necessarily a scam (although I concede 99% of them are)

Re: SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name one

0x. BAT.

> BAT

If one of your examples is a charity fraud scheme masquerading as a crypto-currency start-up [0], I'm not sure you have a very good argument.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18734999

Re: SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO

#116
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They want to add payments to their messenger app. That's a known business model and a hot area right now - WeChat pioneered it, Line does it too, and Facebook is working on a cryptocurrency-based solution that does the same thing.

The rewards could be huge if payments via messaging apps takes off in the west. It's really too bad WhatsApp sold to Facebook of all places. We could have a privacy-oriented chat platform with a cryptocurrency "small cash" type of transaction system built on top. Combined with some informal craigslist style mini-stores, which flourished in China via Wechat. I'm sure FB/WhatsApp could do it via normal payment channels…

If you think the WhatsApp situation is sad, start thinking about Skype and Paypal.

Re: SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Patrick Gibbs: First your citing the Cooley attorney who advised the company...of course he is going to justify his own legal advice. It’s not going to look good when the court determines Kik knew if could have sought clarification from the SEC but didnt Because the SEC no Action Letter process wasn’t practical. Let’s also keep in mind Cooley is the Firm that developed the SAFT (security agreement for future tokens)…

Hey... I'm not citing. I'm not even arguing. I'm quoting their answer to your question. Supposedly Kik did seek clarification from the SEC and didn't get any. Then they received an enforcement action which is supposed to include details about the problems involved and the actions to be taken, but it contained none of those. Since then, they have been working for a year to get any kind of detail from the SEC, and the…

I don't buy this argument from Kik for a second. The SEC might not always get back to you immediately but they sure as shit aren't going to lob charges your way when you're in the middle of working with them. In my experience they're very reasonable and willing to hear you out _so_long_as_ you're respectful, patient, and open to reaching a compromise.

Re: SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Who even bought this stuff? Doesn't this throw up all the red flags of a scam ICO? What’s amazing is they raise nearly $100M selling the token, spent $5M in legal fees and then began raising additional legal fees (over $5M to date) from the public to continue to fight the SEC and anticipation of future litigation with the SEC. They raised $100M and can’t be bothered to use that for their own legal fees...And the pub…

It isn't insanity if you used other cryptos to buy big on Kik/Kin and they only way to protect your position is to not have it go away.

Well it’s throwing good money after bad.

I believe it was Einstein who defined insanity as performing the same task over and over and expecting different results.

If you invested/bought Kik because you wanted a “position” to make money on it, then it fits the definition of a security, so by throwing more money to fight the SEC to claim it’s not a security is a losing battle by your own “position”.

The real irony is that the Kik token probably was structured as a non-security utility token, it’s only the CEO statements/marketing of the token as something that will become extremely valueable to investors that will come back and haunt them.

Post reply on HN