Abhishek Kumar
4 min readJan 7, 2019

Initiative Q: Legit Cryptocurrency or Fraud?

It’s about time we finally address the buzz on Initiative Q. For the uninitiated, it is merely a mining of online money through early investment in a cryptocurrency that does away with traditional payment methods of credit cards, wire transfers, cash etc. because they bear unnecessary costs. It is essential to answer the question of why haven’t we already done away with these overbearing payment systems? Well, because there’s a “chicken and egg” barrier preventing us from reinventing the wheel- no buyer will join a new payment network with no sellers and no seller will offer a new payment alternative that has no buyers, in the first place.

But wait, Initiative Q is not just another cryptocurrency company coming to the industry with the promises of easy money. In fact, it is a dedicated project that aims to create a global payment network of the future and replace the current systems of clunky and costly payments because they are “outdated”. The basis of Initiative Q is earning profits through a unique social payment structure. So, naturally I was curious and upon getting the invite through a friend, I quickly followed the link to the invitation page. The first thing that I noticed there, was a ticker with the money count going down on it- the number continually dropping.

It’s a total scarcity and urgency scheme used by marketers to encourage or scare potential consumers into taking a specific action. In this case, the website was full of all sorts of little games to play and buttons to click. In this industry, these are known as micro-commitments- small actions you get a user to take to build slight amounts of trust, so that in time they will take bigger more lucrative actions for your cause or company. But that was just my initial observation. With that out of the way, let’s dig into what’s what.

Decoding the Cogs of Initiative Q

The first thing that came under my notice was the company didn’t put much focus on the services and benefits they provide. Instead they shine the spotlight on the setbacks of others in the industry which is admittedly, a great way to pull attention off of themselves. By way of showing the downsides of a fellow industry, they unknowingly boost the way website visitors perceive them without providing any real information on themselves. I agree, that they do make some good points however, it’s pretty apparent that the payment processes used today are somewhat old and outdated, incurring high fees for any transactions made on them.

But most buyers are used to what they use, making it difficult for new payment systems to gather momentum or get a footing and really take off. Needless to say, they are comfortable where they’re at for the most part, but Initiative Q attempts to break into the payment network sphere regardless, and provide users with improved methods of paying for goods and services online.

However, claims that a new global payment method could potentially end up seeing 20 trillion a year in transactions is rather unrealistic. Do they have any basis to support these claims? They are completely unable to provide any information whatsoever on how they plan on achieving such massive numbers. Well, it’s supposedly going to happen using their Q currency, with millions of people joining the company’s project movement. Unfortunately, there isn’t enough information on the website to back these numbers, so I can’t support the belief that it’s going to work unless I see more data. They give absolutely no indication of who is running the show or the deets on their team members, plus, no location information is provided on the website of their business’ headquarters. Both are considered signs of scam companies looking to get fast money before ducking out and taking advantage of unsuspecting investors.

Final Verdict on Initiative Q

The deals put forth by them sounds too lucrative and full of holes to any sane ear. They attract more investors by comparing their company to receiving free Bit Coins- something too good to be true. As far as I can say, the company raises red flags withholding key information from investors to make a judicious, fully-informed decision. Therefore, I can’t justifiably recommend anyone to invest into Initiative Q without more information on the team, business model, coin, metrics, and company location. If you are still willing to invest with the company, please do so at your own discretion with caution, so as to not be taken advantage of like the millions of other investors who already have been in the past.

Abhishek Kumar

A Passionate Writer with love for Technology. I love discovering new gadgets and writing about smartphones. However, do not let technology take away your sleep.