Is Initiative Q that little bit too good to be true? good to be true?
Have you heard of Q? It’s a new ‘sign-up quick’ scheme spreading around Facebook and Twitter like wildfire, inviting people to sign up to ‘Q’ – a new form of private currency created by ‘ex-PayPal guys’.
To entice people to join what has been dubbed the next bitcoin – though it is not a cryptocurrency – the developers claim they are giving away significant sums of the currency, which they state could be worth $2 trillion in the future to early users.
Sign-up is free but you need to be invited by an existing user. You’re also required to submit your name and email address. More than two million people have CONSUMER EYE already registered and that figure is climbing. I got a message from a friend this week who said his tech-savvy niece had checked it out and it looked like a good deal. He was going to sign up too, as he had ‘nothing to lose’. But is it too good to be true? Here’s a quick Q&A on Initiative Q: Is it a crypto currency like bitcoin? No. It’s more like a wannabe real private currency that the developers hope will become the standard in payments and the goto global currency. Who is behind it? The Q models have been developed with the help of economist Lawrence White, a professor of monetary theory.
The currency is the brainchild of Saar Wilf, who ran a payments start-up and later founded a company eventually acquired by PayPal. Wilf told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘It’s maybe a get-a-bitricher-slowly scheme. There’s a long way to go until Q is a leading payment network, and there are many risks along the way.
‘However, if we do reach the goal, the reward to the early adopters should be fairly significant. You can argue about the probability of success, but the valuation model in case of success is quite reliable.’ Why is it free? Initiative Q requires hundreds of millions of members to meet its objective. The firm says this won’t be achievable if members are required to pay, so Qs are distributed for free – for now. How much will they be worth? Initiative Q claims two trillion coins will be issued, which will ultimately be worth a US dollar each. So Q could be worth $2 trillion in the future if it works. How does it work? To join, you have to be referred by an existing member, which is why you are seeing invitations to the scheme littered across social media. Once you’ve signed up, both you and the person who issued the invite will be given Q tokens and you get the chance to earn more of the so-far nonexistent currency by inviting up to five other people.
You can earn more Qs by completing tasks, including installing the Q application, adding information and making unspecified purchases.
At this stage, Qs can only be reserved, not spent.
Is it a pyramid scheme?
The combination of the need for recruitment as well as the promises of future riches is a classic sign of a pyramidal structure. But Initiative Q can’t technically be described as a pyramid scheme as no money has changed hands (yet).
‘What we do is no different than referral programmes of companies like DropBox, Airbnb, Uber and many others,’ Wilf said, defending the strategy.
Will Initiative Q sell on my personal details?
The biggest risk to people is that their personal data could be at risk. Initiative Q says collected data will not be shared or sold, adding the database will be destroyed if Q fails. This is all well and good but, as Facebook users know, privacy policies can change.
What have I to lose?
The company has given its word that personal data won’t be shared or sold on, but privacy policies often evolve.
My gut instinct is that Wilf seems to have cash and credibility. And at least you don’t pay anything and it’s not like Bitcoin, which – as a speculative roller-coaster ride using your money on a currency often used by criminals – should be banned. In fact it is in some countries.
Wilf and his banker buddies appear genuinely interested in creating a new currency.
But the whole thing seems way too ambitious to work. But who am I to say? I thought Bitcoin was nuts too.