CEO of Kik, which had an $100M ICO, talks about the limits of blockchain tech and why Kik is building own blockchain, a hybrid of Ethereum and Stellar, for Kin
'What does blockchain do at the end of the day? It allows you to have a database that's trustless.
Context & Ripple Effects
Kik's token story has been one of growing distance from the chain it started on: Kin was announced in 2017 as a cryptocurrency built directly on top of the Ethereum network, funded through a $50M institutional private sale before the $100M ICO. Now the CEO is arguing that blockchain's real value is narrower than the hype — a 'trustless database' — and that justifies Kik running its own ledger, a hybrid of Ethereum and Stellar, rather than renting someone else's.
The move lands mid-stream for Kik: weeks after this interview, the company began letting users earn Kin inside the app through quizzes and polls, spendable on themes — the first real workload for the token. It also parallels Kakao's Ground X effort to build blockchain into Korea's dominant messaging app, making chat platforms the most active category of corporate token builders.
First-order effects
- Kik takes direct control of Kin's throughput and fee economics by moving off shared public chains, which matters immediately for the in-app earning-and-spending loop it just switched on.
Second-order effects
- Rival messaging platforms watching Kik — Kakao's Ground X chief among them — face pressure to own their token infrastructure too, since renting Ethereum leaves transaction costs and congestion outside the app operator's control.
Third-order effects
- If major ICO issuers keep abandoning general-purpose chains for bespoke hybrids, the industry's decentralization pitch narrows toward exactly the 'trustless database' framing the CEO describes — a shift that echoes the earlier argument that blockchain's no-trusted-parties promise is largely irrelevant for systems that already work on institutions.
The trend: Consumer apps that raised money through ICOs are pulling their token infrastructure in-house, trading open-chain neutrality for control over performance and cost.