[danielpatrick]

You're misunderstanding Kin. Kin is not "controlled by Kik" it is an asset that will be exchangeable in and out of the Kik ecosystem. Furthermore, Kin balances will be kept on a public ledger and any other company could build extensions and uses of the currency.

It would be as if your Walmart dollars actually had an exchange for other currency. I would see this as a good thing. Then the poor worker who is being paid in Walmart dollars can know exactly how much they're being paid.

[loceng]

Kik is holding onto the majority of said asset, which has no demand - so no real value. They're hoping to create demand and so there is is value - because demand seems to dictate the cost. That will make the portion they are holding have value - that will give them buying power that they wouldn't otherwise have, I'm not sure that is fair or a good thing.

[tudorconstantin]

Without reading the whitepaper (so I don't know the rules of the currency), if they are able to issue/withdraw coins as they wish, I doubt it will become a trusted coin. So people won't be willing to pay too much for it, nor will they want to build apps with it as a base currency....at least I won't

[juliangoldsmith]

The currency is based on Ethereum, so it's doubtful they'd be able to modify the supply of coins at will.

[baobabKoodaa]

You can program any token you want on top of Ethereum. In this case they did indeed program a token with a money-printing machine that they control.