Kik shutting down its popular messaging app

• Kik CEO has recently announced that the US popular messaging app Kik is shutting down.
• The legal battle with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been a long and expensive process and has drained their resources.
• The company will now focus entirely on Kin cryptocurrency.

Kik CEO Ted Livingston has recently announced that the popular messaging app is shutting down. The company is shutting down its app to focus entirely on Kin cryptocurrency.

The app already has lack of users or competition from other messaging apps. At its peak, Kik's messaging app had hundreds of millions of registered users and the company earned a private market valuation of $1 billion.

In a blog post, Kik CEO and founder Ted Livingston said, “The legal battle with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been a long and expensive process to drain our resources”. The SEC declined to comment for this story. Kik Interactive did not respond to a request for comment on when the app would shut down, CNN reported.

“These are hard decisions. Kik is one of the largest apps in the US. It has industry leading engagement and is growing again,” he said.

Kik Messenger was launched in 2009, part of the app's appeal is [unlike WhatsApp] it let people register and use it without providing a phone number or other credentials.