Kin sets up $5 million ‘Defend Crypto’ fund to take on the SEC

The founder and CEO of the Kin Foundation, Ted Livingston, has this week unveiled the Defend Crypto fund, which he claims is designed to “fight the SEC in court”.

The fund, which was launched on Coinbase Custody, already contains $5 million, which was contributed by the foundation in Bitcoin, Ether, and the project’s native token (KIN).

The KIN digital token is considered a security by the SEC and has been causing trouble for the Kik company since the ICO in 2017. In the past few weeks, Kik admitted that the ICO landed the firm in hot water, causing extraordinary expenses to communicate with the US-based SEC.

The chat app managed to raise between $70 and $100 million worth of Ethereum during its ICO, which took place at a time when ETH price was hovering around $300. But it is unclear what became of the funds and whether Kik sold some of the ETH. In any case, it is somewhat strange that one of the largest token projects would be seeking new funding.

Currently, KIN is in the middle of a token migration, opening the opportunity for all Ethereum-based KIN owners to switch to the new network based on the Stellar (XLM) technology.

A new Howey test

Anthony “Pomp” Pompliano commented that it “looks like they are going to take on regulators in court to create a Howey test for crypto”.

This can be viewed as a brave move by the Kin Foundation – one that demonstrates the company’s confidence that it could even win such a landmark case.

In an ideal world, the case would lead to the creation of an updated Howey test which cryptocurrency companies could use as a guide in the often confusing regulatory environment for blockchain start-ups.

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