Stormx (STMX) is the native token of StormX, a microtask and cashback platform based on the Ethereum blockchain.

STMX launched in December 2017 at about $0.02. It hit its all-time high of $0.24 the next month but fell back to $0.02 by the start of 2019. After hitting lows of $0.0005 in March 2020, STMX found fortune in 2021, when the token hit highs of $0.08. But by June 2022, it had crashed to $0.009. The coin launched with its maximum supply of 10 billion. All tokens are in circulation.

Storm started as a microtask platform. Microtask platforms pay out small sums of money for the completion of trivial tasks, like watching advertisements, filling out surveys or moderating content on social media platforms.

Software companies often commission huge batches of microtasks to inform their machine learning algorithms, having its cash-strapped users complete such inane tasks as correctly identifying a cat from a dog, or matching colored balls with other balls of the same color.

This largely joyless industry is dominated by Amazon’s microtask platform, Mechanical Turk. MTurk workers can earn between $1 and $6 an hour, according to a 2018 academic study.

Storm was one of a handful of companies that put this work on the blockchain. Blockchain companies claim blockchains can reduce the number of verifications a single task might require from about 15 to 10, making things cheaper for people who commission microtasks.

In 2017, Storm pivoted to StormX, a crypto cashback mobile app and browser extension that pays out crypto whenever users shop online at one of thousands of retailers, including Macy’s, Lego and Samsung. In that way, it’s similar to the browser extension Honey, but with crypto rewards in bitcoin (BTC), ethereum (ETH), dai (DAI) and STMX instead of providing users with coupons.

Storm didn’t cut out microtasks, but it hid them within a user’s profile tab and doesn’t add many new microtasks to the site.

Those that stake STMX in a connected wallet, such as MetaMask, can increase their crypto cashback by up to 3.5x. The more they stake, the higher their rewards. The level that unlocks the 3.5x benefit, “diamond,” also reduces the time it takes to receive rewards by 75%. Diamond requires stakers to hold 6.2 million STMX. As of June 2022, that’s about $62,000 in STMX.

While high, rewards can quickly add up. If someone buys something for $150 at a store that offers, say, a 6% reward, those that hold more than 6.2 million STMX would receive $31.50.

As of June 2022, StormX plans to launch a crypto debit card. It would provide up to 5% cashback on all purchases, and up to 15% cashback at over 15,000 physical stores.

StormX is based in Singapore and was founded by Simon Yu and Calvin Hsieh.

In 2018, Redditors reported that Storm delayed payments for completed tasks when the token price was high, distributing funds only after the token price had dropped. Storm said that false claims had created a backlog.

In 2022, StormX sponsored Bitcoin believer and NASCAR racer Landon Cassill’s car for a race in Portland, Oregon. It is also the exclusive blockchain partner of the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers.

Also in 2022, StormX launched a governance token called athens (ATH), named after the Greek city that started the first democracy.

ATH also stands for all-time high – perhaps an acknowledgment of crypto-based decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) democracies, where governance tokens are often valued more as a financial instrument than for the voting power they confer to holders.

Those that stake ATH can accumulate more tokens, which holders can sell or keep to direct the future of StormX.