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Messaging-App Kik's Big Bet On Digital Coin Offering (wsj.com)
cdreimer writes: According to a report from The Wall Street Journal (Warning: source may be paywalled, alternative source), messaging app Kik is planning a $125 million coin offering to tap into the highly speculative cyptrocurrency market. Kik made the news last year by getting the JavaScript registry, npm, to give them the "kik" package name, prompting the developer to remove all his packages, including the popular "pad-left" package, and breaking thousands of JavaScript project for a week. From the report: "Messaging-app operator Kik Interactive said Tuesday that it is aiming to raise $125 million through a so-called initial coin offering in September, one of the first established companies to step into the mushrooming but highly speculative market for these digital tokens. In doing so, Kik, which has encountered growth issues, is trying to tap into the surging interest in cryptocurrencies and digital tokens associated with them. It also is experimenting with a potential way for its investors to essentially cash out of the company without actually selling their equity. The market for digital coins has exploded in 2017, with more than 100 firms raising more than $1.7 billion, up from 64 firms raising about $103 million in 2016, according to research firm Smith & Crown. Most of these firms, though, are startups and in many cases don't have a working product. In that, Kik is different. Its messaging app is popular among teens in Canada and the U.S. Kik also allows developers to publish games and services within the platform, a hook meant to keep users on the app for longer."
Which is what kik mostly delivers. Personal, one-on-one porn experiences. What the article seems to miss is that by creating their own coin platform, they now have a way for people to purchase and then pay others with that stays wholly inside their walled garden. No need for any pesky Apple or Google to process the payment. This is what their investors want as it gives them a nice rental situation which puts the onus on the user and not them to provide a method of cashing out.
It all reminds me of the South Sea Bubble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.