In a turn everyone should’ve seen coming, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is suing messaging app Kik for its initial coin offering (ICO).

In court documents released yesterday , the SEC outlined that Kik’s sale of one trillion “Kin” tokens was not registered with the SEC. As such, the SEC claims it is an “illegal securities offering of digital tokens.”

From May to September 2017, Kik sold its digital tokens to over 10,000 investors all over the world and raised around “$100 million in US dollars and digital assets,” the document reads.

“Kik had lost money for years on its sole product, an online messaging application, and the company’s management predicted internally that it would run out of money in 2017,” the SEC said in an accompanying statement .

“The complaint further alleges that Kik marketed the Kin tokens as an investment opportunity,” the statement continues. “Kik allegedly told investors that rising demand would drive up the value of Kin, and that Kik would undertake crucial work to spur that demand, including by incorporating the tokens into its messaging app, creating a new Kin transaction service, and building a system to reward other companies that adopt Kin.”

Kik also told employees a similar story. The company’s CEO told employees in an email that as demand for the company’s token goes up, so would its price. “Buy today, sell tomorrow, profit,” he said.

By definition, the Kin sale was an unregistered, unlicensed, and illegal security.

Indeed, it should come as no surprise then that the SEC is suing Kik for its ICO, and the company must’ve seen it coming.

Back in January, Kik was already preparing itself for the impending legal battle after the SEC decided to class its token sale as a security offering.

Given the SEC’s disclosure that Kik has been losing money since its ICO, it’s also not surprising that the firm was trying to crowdfund its legal battle . It claims the case is pivotal for the future of cryptocurrency, but it sure can use the cash anyway.

FBI suspects tea company that ‘pivoted’ to blockchain of insider trading

Long Island Tea Corp was one of those companies that randomly added the word “ blockchain” to the name of their business to seem cool (and maybe bump up its stock) – but it appears its name change may be more sinister than first thought.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation suspects Long Blockchain Corp., as it is now known, may be guilty of insider trading, Quartz reports . According to a request for a search warrant, the FBI is also searching for evidence of securities fraud.

According to the warrant, FBI agents linked Long Blockchain Corp. to a separate fraud case involving securities fraud at separate firm. Two individuals, Oliver Lindsay and Gannon Giguiere, were arrested in relation to this case.  “Hallmark indicators” were found on Lindsay’s phone that suggested they were also involved in insider trading with Long Blockchain Corp.

The FBI is seeking access to other encrypted messages on Lindsay’s phone as part of its investigation.

Long Island Tea’s name change

Back in December 2017, the beverage company changed its name to include the word “blockchain.” Shortly after, its share value pumped from under $5 million to nearly $70 million.

Unfortunately for the company, stock exchange NASDAQ delisted Long Blockchain shortly after the name change, and was served a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission .

While the subpoena was thin on specifics, the SEC appeared to be seeking more details on the company‘s shift from “tea” to “blockchain.”

Name changes don’t work anymore

Coincidently, another tea maker based in Hong-Kong changed its name to Blockchain Group in November 2017.

By February 2019, the company had gone into administration .

Another company called Bioptix, now known as Riot Blockchain , formally manufactured biomedical machines. It strangely pivoted to cryptocurrency mining in 2017.

The firm’s share price jumped amid the business shift, but again, failed to maintain momentum. Riot Blockchain posted a $58 million loss in April this year .

Satoshi Nakaboto: ‘Bitcoin market cap rivals world’s largest beer company’

Our robot colleague Satoshi Nakaboto writes about Bitcoin every fucking day.

Welcome to another edition of Bitcoin Today, where I, Satoshi Nakaboto, tell you what’s been going on with Bitcoin in the past 24 hours. As Nikola Tesla used to say: Bob’s your uncle!

Bitcoin Price

We closed the day, August 15 2019, at a price of $10,311. That’s a respectable 2.72 percent increase in 24 hours, or $273. It was the highest closing price in one day.

We’re still 48 percent below Bitcoin‘s all-time high of $20,089 (December 17 2017).

Bitcoin market cap

Bitcoin’s market cap ended the day at $184,357,666,577. It now commands 69 percent of the total crypto market.

Bitcoin volume

Yesterday’s volume of $22,899,115,082 was the highest in eight days, 49 percent above the year’s average, and 49 percent below the year’s high.

Bitcoin transactions

A total of 355,487 transactions were conducted yesterday, which is 5 percent above the year’s average and 21 percent below the year’s high.

Bitcoin transaction fee

Yesterday’s average transaction fee concerned $0.89. That’s $2.82 below the year’s high of $3.71.

Bitcoin distribution by address

As of now, there are 13,965 Bitcoin millionaires, or addresses containing more than $1 million worth of Bitcoin.

Furthermore, the top 10 Bitcoin addresses house 5.4 percent of the total supply, the top 100 14.4 percent, and the top 1000 34.6 percent.

Company with a market cap closest to Bitcoin

With a market capitalization of $182 Billion, Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV has a market capitalization most similar to that of Bitcoin at the moment.

Bitcoin’s path towards $1 million

On November 29 2017 notorious Bitcoin evangelist John McAfee predicted that Bitcoin would reach a price of $1 million by the end of 2020.

He even promised to eat his own dick if it doesn’t. Unfortunately for him it’s 88.2 percent behind being on track. Bitcoin‘s price should have been $87,689 by now, according to dickline.info.

Bitcoin on Twitter

Yesterday 19,697 fresh tweets about Bitcoin were sent out into the world. That’s 1.8 percent above the year’s average. The maximum amount of tweets per day this year about Bitcoin was 41,687.

Most popular posts about Bitcoin

This was yesterday’s most engaged tweet about Bitcoin:

This was yesterday’s most upvoted Reddit post about Bitcoin:

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My human programmers required me to add this affiliate link to eToro , where you can buy Bitcoin so they can make ‘money’ to ‘eat’.