It hasn’t been easy being a cryptocurrency enthusiast in 2018. We went from being hot commodities that everybody wanted to talk to a year ago to being the butt of many jokes at present times.
But the worst part, by far, is that there is still so little evidence to suggest that cryptocurrencies will ever be usable in everyday life. It’s hard to keep up the same old story – “cryptocurrencies are the future!” – without starting to wonder about why that future still seems so distant.
Fortunately, a lot of progress is being made behind the scenes, and new solutions are emerging to help propel cryptocurrencies into the mainstream. One such solution is CitiCash, and its mission is one which has been far too neglected by the majority of projects in the blockchain industry.
What is CitiCash?
CitiCash is a cryptocurrency project that focuses on serving everyday people and making it easy for anybody to enter the world of digital currency. As long as technical knowledge is necessary to use cryptocurrencies effectively and safely, they will never see the levels of adoption needed to revolutionize global finance. CitiCash is designed not just for you to use it, but for your grandparents to be able to use it as well.
Currently, less than 1% of the top 500 online retailers in the US accept payment in Bitcoin. As we approach the 10-year anniversary of Bitcoin’s genesis block, this figure is rather disappointing. Moreover, only 12% of cryptocurrency wallets on the market can even be linked to debit cards, making retail use for cryptocurrencies highly inconvenient.
The most important piece of the CitiCash solution, at least to begin with, is the debit card that each CitiCash wallet gets upon request. The wallet and debit card will be directly linked, with built-in functionality to convert CitiCash into whichever fiat currency is accepted by the vendor who is receiving payment.
In the transition period for wide adoption of all cryptocurrencies, CitiCash is developing its own CitiCash pay service that is connected to an exchange. A partnership with the bank that has a clearing service will allow users to convert CitiCash into whichever fiat currency is accepted by the vendor who is receiving payment.
The contract with the bank is already approved, and as soon as CitiCash gets listed on its first exchange (October 2018), the contract is valid. In this way, it’s possible for people to begin using cryptocurrencies as they go about their daily lives, with practically no difference in user experience from if they were using an ordinary debit card.
In addition, CitiCash wallets will have P2P transaction functionality for non-retail transactions. Combined with everything else, this makes CitiCash like a bank account, debit card, and Venmo-type application all in one. Not only that, but CitiCash has also devised a solution to improve the user experience by allowing users to assign an alias name to their wallet address, which can then be used interchangeably with the original 99-character address for coin transfers.
And to top it all off, CitiCash transactions are made anonymous by RingCT (Ring Confidential Transactions) technology in order to preserve user privacy, one of the most common reasons people choose to use cryptocurrencies rather than fiat.
While the majority of projects are making big promises about what’s in store for the future, CitiCash is focused on the biggest problem here and now: user adoption.
The CitiCash Coin
CitiCash will start with a pre-mined supply of 135,000,000 coins, 5,000,000 of which will go towards paying the team while the remaining 130,000,000 go towards project development. An additional 865,000,000 coins will be mined in CitiCash’s first 20 years of existence. The mining process will use the CryptoNight Heavy hash algorithm, which is a Proof of Work algorithm that can only be carried out by CPUs and GPUs.
After the first 20 years pass, CitiCash will switch to a constant inflation rate of 2,103,840 new coins per year in order to account for coins that are lost from the circulating supply.
The value of the CitiCash Coin will be determined by how much the coin can be used by people in their everyday lives. The more places it can be used via the CitiCash debit cards, the more valuable the coin will become.
The Team Behind CitiCash
CitiCash already has a sizable team of professionals from the Czech Republic, with backgrounds in technology, product management, marketing, and design. The CEO of the project is Miroslav Peraica, who has a background in economics, marketing, and product development, and more than a decade of experience.
CTO Oldrich Salek is a senior software developer with a focus on security who previously worked for the Miami-based company ShipMonk, which provides software solutions for eCommerce businesses.
CMO Marcela Pospíšilová has been working as a digital marketing manager and consultant since 2004. She’s done it all, from copywriting and search engine optimization to social media management and affiliate marketing campaigns.
For a full overview of the team working to make CitiCash a success, you can visit the project’s website.
Roadmap
So far, CitiCash has already met some important development milestones for launching the project. The genesis block has been mined and the mining pool is active, which you can join here.
Additionally, there is a blockchain explorer available, and a desktop wallet for managing your CitiCash holdings.
Next up on the roadmap is launching the CitiCash coin token sale, which you can find details for in the next section. In the meantime, the development team is continuing to work on more functionality, including a web browser wallet to be released in Q3 2018, and a mobile wallet app for iOS and Android coming in Q4 2018.
Finally, the team will be working on linking CitiCash wallets of all types to debit cards throughout 2018 and 2019, making it possible for people to easily use CitiCash for retail transactions.
CitiCash Coin Sale
CitiCash will be holding their coin sale beginning on September 1. There will be 135,000,000 coins available in the sale, with a price of US$0.15 per coin.
The funds raised in the CitiCash coin sale will be used to pay developers, invest in software and hardware infrastructure, increase debit card usability by integrating with more fiat and cryptocurrencies, pay fees to get listed on major exchanges, and conduct a massive marketing campaign to spread awareness about CitiCash to people outside of those who already know about and use cryptocurrencies.
Join the CitiCash Community
If you’d like to learn more about the CitiCash project, we recommend that you read the project whitepaper and review the website.
You can also talk to the team and community members directly through Facebook, Twitter, Telegram, and Reddit.
