StormX is a cryptocurrency based in Seattle, WA that aims to give users cashback opportunities when shopping anywhere in the world. With a unique selling point of the cashback being rewarded in cryptocurrency, as well as their extremely competitive rates of cashback compared to competitors like Shopping.io and Crypto.com. Founded by Simon Yu (CEO) in 2015, the company had a good run-up to the 2017 bull market where it achieved 1.5 million downloads of the app and 249 BTC (price at the time) in cashback rewards (StormX, 2018). The bear market from 2018 put StormX in trouble, like most crypto companies. They went under the radar while struggling to stay afloat. This leads them to a new rebrand in 2020 where they have re-entered the space strongly going into the bitcoin halving year. The addition of the chrome web extension and the increased amount of availability in other countries has given them momentum and favorability for investors with the addition of member benefits.
Tokenomics:
A brief outline of tokenomics. StormX is secured using the Ethereum proof-of-stake network (PoS) as an ERC-20 token. This has allowed for the integration of smart contracts which are fundamental for what StormX offers. $STMX has a total supply of 10 Million tokens, with no current functionality for any events that may affect the supply i.e. Burns or mints (CoinMarketCap, 2022).
The token is also currently used for staking as well as member benefits. With staking, holders can commit their $STMX tokens to earn an annual percentage yield (APY) paid weekly, this can be unstacked at any time but the current week’s yield will not be accounted for, even if you hadn’t unstacked all your tokens (StormX, 2022). When holding $STMX tokens unstacked or staked, you will be placed into a bracket membership (Bronze ascending to Diamond) depending on the amount you hold. Within these brackets, the membership will entitle you to a multiplier to the current cashback rates i.e. bronze 1.25 times, diamond 3.5 times. In addition, you will receive your rewards faster with a better membership (StormX, 2022).
Aspirations/Pipeline:
Customer experience
A large part of the ethos around StormX is to bring loyal members an improved experience. Whilst this is a new project, this is a smart approach to attract new users and keep customers satisfied. It is planned that members will be provided “VIP” customer support depending on the level of the membership and even granted access to communicate with the team directly including Simon himself (Chuen et al., 2021). The better the membership/amount of tokens you hold will determine your voting power, in their system, this was done through an airdrop of StormX’s governance tokens. The more tokens, the more weight your vote has.
Debit card
The most anticipated pipeline since the rebrand has been the debit card which has boasted desirable rates of up to 15% cashback to almost all physical stores with zero atm, monthly, and PIN transaction fees (US currency), and 2% foreign transaction fees. With extra opportunities of up to 5% cash back on everyday purchases and up to 8% on highly demanded Amazon (terms and conditions applying) (Chuen et al., 2021). This is a huge deal as this would be the first mainstream debit card that uses crypto as cash but also rewards cashback in crypto at the same time.
Gas fees
Other benefits are being worked on that have a more universal approach with less regard to membership. Currently, all gas fees are paid for by StormX when withdrawing your cash back rewards to your desired wallet. This is a huge benefit as many know that gas fees at certain times can be painful. The issue with needing to pay for gas when staking has stopped people from committing, due to it not being overall beneficial with the size of the commitment. This is looking to be resolved by reducing gas fees on the consumer, resulting in more staked $STMX.
Shopping tracking
An improvement to the shopping tracking is also a goal where customers have a more seamless experience when shopping online and not worry whether their shop has been acknowledged for cashback. Currently, the StormX browser must be used as well as the chrome extension must be active for shops to be tracked. This will be improved with background work with backend development and integration and cooperation with contributing websites.
