Kik, the messaging platform whose ICO is being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), must have thought that their 117-page response to the SEC’s charges was going to go relatively unnoticed by the crypto community, but they were wrong, and brilliantly so. Katherine Wu, crypto enthusiast and Director of Business Development for research company Messari, not only read the response but painstakingly annotated it and posted her annotations and the piece online, stating that she was “actually mad” when the Herculean task was over.
? IT HAPPENED!!!!!:
Kik filed their answer to the SEC’s complaint today and it’s 100+ pages long and if you don’t think I’m crazy enough to annotate ALL OF THE PAGES YOU’RE WRONG.
Happy reading + some thoughts from me 🙂https://t.co/4YcMfDlRSm
— Katherine Wu (@katherineykwu) August 7, 2019
Kik’s Detailed Response
Kik was hit with an SEC charge in June this year after practically begging the agency to do so in order to try and force a ruling that could act as a form of regulation for crypto companies who are wading around in unchartered and potentially financially punitive waters at the moment. Kik’s ICO was the target of the SEC’s ire, with the authorities alleging that that Kik conducted an illegal $100 million securities offering of their digital token, Kin.
The SEC accused Kik of hurriedly raising capital to improve a poor financial position and that the token had no established use case at the time. Kik has now fought back with their mammoth response, which Wu says is so large because Kik and their legal team “actually went in LINE BY LINE and addressed each and every one of the allegations”.
Kik Wants Jury Trial
Wu’s comments are clearly too numerous to list in their entirety, but she does a great job of explaining the legalese and giving context to certain matters. Needless to say, Kik denies all the charges the SEC levels against them, stating that the commission twisted the facts of the case because the evidence they had wasn’t strong enough, which “badly mischaracterizes the totality of the facts and circumstances leading up to Kik’s sale of Kin in 2017.” Wu reminds us that Kik has adamantly requested a jury trial, which she thinks is because they want to cross-examine the SEC’s statements and witnesses, ensuring that “cherry-picked facts” don’t create a bias.
Wu summarizes the response by saying that Kik “really did a fucking insanely meticulous job”, suggesting that the SEC could have a tougher fight on its hands than it first thought. We hope Wu was able to relax with a glass or two of wine following her mammoth effort that was, in her understated words, “such a long read.”
