Considering the ICO price of token was $2.8 (and I guess bounty pool of 5000 CIFI was based on that price) and now it's ~$36
ATH was $381 according to coinmarketcap. That makes sense why they don't want to pay the hunters. We have seen such excuse a lot of times.
So apart from the project, it is the hard work of the bounty hunters who created the hype for this project due to their marketing, and hence the token gained so much value. The bounty hunters deserve their reward as it was because of them this project became so successful but afterward, the team forgets about the hunters as they do not want to distribute the token because it's so valuable in price. It's a sad ending for the bounty hunters.