Rather than compare this to Algo Trading and discuss whether this is better or worse than a very bad runner card, I'd like to analyze C.I. Fund by itself.

A little bit of math tells us that you'll need to have CIF on the table for several turns before it changes from "expensive click-bait" to "econ card". Thankfully it's free to rez, and you can start investing in it the turn you rez it.

CIF's one saving grace is that you can take the money if a runner runs on it. After 1 or 2 turns investing, you can pay 2 to gain back your 3, so you've lost 2 and the to install. After 3 turns, you've only lost the . And after 4 turns, you will still profit from this, even if the runner runs it.

After 5 turns, it becomes the world's slowest Hedge Fund. I'm not convinced the 5 turns of protecting this thing make it worth the "Royalties with upside" effect.

The obvious weaknesses of the card are:

• a painfully low cost of 2
• expensive investment cost of 6
• several turns of being vulnerable before making a profit
• a one-time trigger before trashing
• it's an asset, so it requires its own server

It's looking bad. Let's try to make up for some of those drawbacks in the hypothetical situation that you actually wanted to include this in your deck.

1. You can run this in an asset-friendly ID like Gagarin, IG, or CtM that can help to protect it. Similarly it is boosted by Encryption Protocol and Oaktown Grid, both of which are underrated IMO. Obviously, you also put ICE in front of it, making it even more expensive to trash.
2. You can put this side-by-side with Bankers, meaning that it is "free" to invest in. If the runner doesn't trash CBG immediately, of course. Which they should if they want to, I don't know, try to win. You could also offload Adonis creds onto this directly for the same "free" investment.
3. It would be interesting to give the runner other must-run options at the same time as this. "You can trash my CIF, or you can run my IAA'd agenda, or you can run this Sensie I just rezzed. It might be hard to run and trash all of those in one of the IDs mentioned.

Ultimately, CIF is doing what you don't want to do as corp: take forever. Yes, you could put this in your scoring server like you do an Adonis Campaign, wait 6 turns to make decent profit, then take your money and IAA an agenda. But that's 6 turns the runner had to set up and work towards their end-game.

So yeah, it's probably better than Algo, but only marginally. ;-)

I'll just direct you to tiedyedvortex's review of Algo Trading to let you know how monumentally bad this card is.

The only redeeming feature of this is that if the runner runs to trash this, you can get back the money that you basically wasted on setting this bad card rolling.

Edit: With Tapwrm being the new hotness at the time of this edit, I can see this being a plausible include for CTM if you want to keep your total credit pool low for Tapwrm, but get rich enough to hit the runner with SEA Source into Exchange of Information.

Almost certainly not actually worth doing, but I thought it an interesting interaction that ought to be highlighted, particularly as you can cruelly put it on a Mumbad Virtual Tour if you can spare one to protect this hot garbage.

... of course, Sealed Vault will do about as well here, just be sure that you don't lose everything to a cheeky Polop

Best case scenario, this is a +$2/turn asset which requires $8 in funds on hand and takes 3 turns to even start banking money and maybe 6 turns unattacked to bank enough money to consider triggering it. On an asset with a trash cost this low, this was never close to workable. On the runner side, Algorithmic Trading isn't very good itself even though the enemy can't easily trash it. There's too much downpayment and it takes too long to break even.

If you just want unconditional money every turn, campaigns are much better than this. Eve Campaign produces $2/turn for $5 down and doesn't need to be trashed to collect. Adonis Campaign, similarly strong. If you're okay with conditions being attached to your money, Mumba Temple produces $2/turn each time you need something rezzed and the janky The Root produces $3/turn for $6 down.

This card came out in the early days of Netrunner, when economic assets were generally not as strong and the best assets were like Eve/Adonis Campaign rather than modern juggernauts like Daily Quest and Commercial Bankers Group. Even in the early days, asking the corp for a downpayment for a trash-triggered $2/turn was a nonstarter. In 2022, I think a corp card which banks $2 each turn and can be cashed out one time would be viable on a 3/2 agenda or maybe an upgrade but not much else. This might actually be popular as a 3/2 Jinteki agenda, because Jinteki players tend to have weaker economies, longer games, and fewer viable 3/2 options.