The Canadian Crypto Improvement Fund (CIF) has announced the launch of its innovative project, finding a way to get businesses involved in an untapped market worth over 150 billion dollars. The company has introduced the CIF asset, which offers all-in-one functionality as a business incentive, marketing tool, and customer loyalty program. The platform has announced the crowdsale of its digital asset, CIF which starts on October 1st, 2017. The Crypto Improvement Fund ICO is organized in three stages, lasting 90 days. With the first stage starting October 1, 2017, the final stage is set to end on January 1, 2018.
The CIF token is a specially designed blockchain asset as a part of the business incentive program that rewards cryptocurrency adoption. Apart from its primary role, the CIF tokens have a broad range of uses both on and beyond the platform.
Founder of the Crypto Improvement fund, Scott Douglas explained the lack of cryptocurrency adoption in businesses –
“Although certain businesses adopt cryptocurrency for B2C (business to customer) transactions, the list of participating businesses is regrettably small (roughly 100,000). Although this may seem like a large number – worldwide this is a fraction of total potential adoption. In a B2B (business to business) market – although research is not as sound on this topic. One can assume cryptocurrencies hold marginal if any reasonable transaction volume at all.”
What is the Business Rewards Program?
The CIF Business Rewards Program incentivizes businesses for their increased awareness, involvement and acceptance of the cryptocurrency market. To qualify for the rewards program businesses must adopt and use at least one cryptocurrency as a viable payment method for their clients. To be eligible for the program, a business must show that it has been accepting any cryptocurrency as a mode of payment from its customers for at least six months. It should also show proof that it has been promoting or encouraging customers to use cryptocurrency payment method during the time. By doing so, the companies prove that they are active members of the cryptocurrency community while showing their support to the crypto-ecosystem as a whole.
Scott outlines the goal of Business Rewards Program –
“Our goal is to arm businesses with the information and tools to look at Crypto as a means to eliminate pain points and high fees, as is seen all too often with traditional payment processing systems. Too many companies focus on the product as opposed to the information, knowledge and education of the applications generating the ROI which is tied to the product.”
The businesses that are qualified for the rewards program stand to gain a quarterly allowance of CIF tokens from the program. The allowance issued will be based on the total asset value once calculated upon the completion of the ICO. The platform will occasionally recalculate the allowance based on fluctuations in the asset price, and it is also dependent on the total monetized volume of business conducted with cryptocurrency.
The method of calculation of rewards acts as a driving force for the businesses to push cryptocurrency over fiat payments among customers. It will also encourage more online as well as brick and mortar shops to include cryptocurrency as one of the payment options. By doing so, they also become part of a niche market, standing apart from their competitors.
Businesses rewarded for their participation in the project also receive cryptocurrency training, allowing them to exchange their CIF for fiat currencies, other cryptocurrencies, or use it to pay for the platform’s value-added services.
With CIF, the merchant demand is reflected back onto the underlying market which in turn increases the value of the token. The amount of CIF created for qualified businesses is finite, leading to a rise in the token’s value as demand increases later. Thus, making the program more attractive to new businesses and early adopters.
Value Added Services – Customer Loyalty
CIF is also designed to act as a customer loyalty program, giving businesses many different ways to apply their allotted allowance of tokens. Exchanging CIF to fiat is a simple process, but the token is better served in enabling companies to promote the increased use of cryptocurrency.
For this reason, CIF can also be used as a token to reward clients for transactions completed via cryptocurrency with the vendor. As a part of the loyalty program, both the business and vendor will be provided with free training and tools necessary to instruct customers on how to download a wallet and receive the tokens. The loyalty CIF program eliminates the upfront CapEx costs and capital risks for all businesses involved with the program as they receive assets at no charge.
ICO Crowdsale
The CIF crowdsale participants can purchase CIF with BTC. Proceeds from the sale will be used to fund various aspects of the CIF project.
The token distribution is broken down into three stages, taking place over 90 days. The platform has set a maximum sell cap of 125 million CIF tokens.
Stage 1: 85 million CIF – October 1, 2017, at 17:00 (UTC)
Stage 2: 30 million CIF – November 1, 2017, at 17:00 (UTC)
Stage 3: 10 million CIF – December 1, 2017, at 17:00 (UTC)
All coins allotted for the ICO would be distributed among the investors. The platform won’t be organizing a presale before the ICO. Crypto Improvement Fund intends to maintain transparency throughout the process. Investors can check the total amount of BTCs raised during the ICO by searching the donation address on Bitcoin block explorer.
Bounty Campaigns
Individuals will be rewarded with CIF for helping spread the word about the ICO. They can advertise on social media platforms, conduct interviews, send out press releases, translate documents, etc. to receive bounty payouts.
The platform has allocated 15 million CIF for bounty program, and it will be distributed upon conclusion of the ICO campaign.