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Kik says it’s ‘here to stay,’ following shutdown reports

Brian Heater

It’s been a rough run for Kik of late. The once-mighty messaging service announced in late September that it would be shutting down its app. CEO Ted Livingston noted in a blog post that the startup would be trimming its headcount from more than 100 people to “an elite 19 person team,” following a protracted 18-month battle with the SEC.

Today the service noted on Twitter, however, “Great news: Kik is here to stay!!!! AND there’s some really exciting plans for making the app even better. More details coming soon. Stay tuned.”

The news follows an October 7 tweet from Livingston that noted, “Some exciting news: we may have found a home for Kik! We just signed an LOI [letter of intent] with a great company. They want to buy the app, continue growing it for our millions of users, and take the Kin integration to the next level. Not a done deal yet, but could be a great win win. More soon.”

Along with the previously noted shutdown of Kik Messenger, the executive added that the far leaner team would be shifting its focus to its cryptocurrency, Kin. “[N]o matter what happens to Kik, Kin is here to stay,” Livingston said of the two-year-old currency at the time. “Kin operates on an open, decentralized infrastructure run by a dozen independent companies. Kin is a currency used by millions of people in dozens of independent apps.”

Kin was the subject of an SEC lawsuit earlier this year, following its $100 million ICO raise. “The SEC charges that Kik sold the tokens to U.S. investors without registering their offer and sale as required by the U.S. securities laws,” the commission wrote in June.

What the future ultimately looks like for Kik is still very unclear following the fairly cryptic tweet. We’ve reached out to the company for comment.

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Brian Heater

Brian Heater was the Hardware Editor at TechCrunch until early 2025. He has worked for a number of leading tech publications, including Engadget, PCMag, Laptop, and Tech Times, where he served as the Managing Editor. His writing has appeared in Spin, Wired, Playboy, Entertainment Weekly, The Onion, Boing Boing, Publishers Weekly, The Daily Beast and various other publications. He hosts the weekly Boing Boing interview podcast RiYL, has appeared as a regular NPR contributor and shares his Queens apartment with a rabbit named Juniper.

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