Initiative Q - Money from nowhere?
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Anyone seen this yet?
Apparently some people are trying to build a new currency, that surprisingly DOESN'T seem to be a cryptocurrency. I just, for the life of me, can't figure out how the deus this is going to end up being used compared to...well, standard currency.
Thoughts?
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Experimentally, I signed up for it (through a friend's link, since that's how I heard of this and apparently you have to be invited), and it looks like they're just giving it away to get people to sign up?
Seems that there's a value based on how soon you sign up, signing up gives you 10% of that value, inviting and "verifying" up to 5 other people will somehow give you up to another 40%, and the remaining 50% is...to be continued?
So...now I have 14,286 Qs. And can secure up to another 57,147 more Qs. That they're aiming to have a target value equivalent to the USD.
I...what?
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@e4tmyl33t Wanna invite me? I like my fake money. You can use blakeyrat@gmail.com
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HAhaha target value $1/Q? And they gave me $15,000 for doing NOTHING? Jesus. What a scam.
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@blakeyrat I know, right? Now I have 25,700 of these things.
Maybe they'll eventually let me convert them to C-Bills or something.
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Ooh, ooh, I'm looking through their FAQs. Apparently they'll be using "advanced artificial intelligence models" in order to help ensure secure transactions.
And apparently they have a "vision paper". And an "economic model".
And they claim cryptocurrency is a brilliant solution to a problem that doesn't exist.
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Hey! Hey! Help me get Q!
Initiative Q is building a new payment network. To get people to adopt it, they’re giving away significant sums of their future currency to early users. They require only name, email, and an invite from an existing user. Here’s my invite link: https://initiativeq.com/invite/BbALBJIWX
yayayayayya es legit gud!
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Honestly, the only thing I can think of with this is that I can potentially own 50,000 John de Lancies. Which would probably be infinitely more useful (not to mention more entertaining) than whatever dustbin this'll probably end up in.
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@tsaukpaetra You need to verify my registration now.
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There is so much square wheel reinventing going on here. But I guess that's par for the course, right?
Today's payment systems (credit cards, cash, wire transfers) are old and outdated, which means we’re all bearing unnecessary costs.
No, they're battle-hardened and are useful due to the associated network effects of being well-established technologies.
For example, open your wallet and count how many different cards you have, and how much cash you have to carry around. The technology already exists to replace your wallet with a fast and secure digital payment method.
We carry these cards around because as they compete with one another, they are checks on each other's influence. And we carry cash because not every vendor has the means or ability to accept credit cards, in addition to being able to handle the case that the processing systems may be offline.
Additionally, the current payment networks have been designed decades ago and their usage causes inefficient processing, fraud and rigidity — all of which translate to high costs.
There have been flaws in payment systems, yes, which have been slowly corrected. What makes your system immune to any such flaws?
There are many advanced payment technologies and innovations waiting to be deployed.
Are they good ones?
Here are just a few examples: NFC on smartphones instead of a plastic card to authenticate account holders; MFA methods to make payments more secure; AI to reduce fraud; one global currency to eliminate currency exchange fees; digital transactions to make transactions faster, safer, and cheaper. See more details about the improvements and innovations that a modernized payment system could offer.
Oh, NFC, you mean that gigantic security hole that has everyone putting smart cards in copper foil sheaths? And AI for fraud detection? My bank hinted a few years ago that they had already been doing that for a while when I called to confirm a false-positive transaction. Given that my bank probably has far more resources than you do (particularly since your site reads like a pitch for funding), what makes you think you can do better?
So why don’t we already have newer, better systems? Because there’s a “chicken and egg” barrier — no buyer will join a new payment network with no sellers, and no seller will offer a new payment option that no buyer uses.
Hey, it's almost like you're beginning to grasp the flaws in your idea!
A payment system is only useful if it’s used by a significant number of both buyers and sellers. Getting to that critical mass of users is the challenge, as people will initially be reluctant to adopt the new payment system.
This barrier has historically been the reason that previous attempts to deploy new payment systems have had limited or no success, despite offering superior functionality.
I'm gonna dispute that "superior functionality." Many of them were dreamed up by twentysomethings high on Dunning-Kruger and eager to chisel new square wheels from stone.
If someone built a modern payment system that implemented these technologies and somehow got buyers and sellers to adopt it, this system would quickly become popular. It could eventually end up seeing 20 trillion dollars in transactions per year.
"If someone built..." Aha! Got you! That implies you haven't built anything yet! I thought most sensible VCs wanted to see a functional prototype before handing over that delicious cash. NEEEEXT!
Credit cards already account for approximately $20 trillion in transactions. Once buyers and sellers have a better option than credit cards, they would naturally prefer it whenever possible, and it would eventually reach or exceed that level.
Arguments of the form of "Industry X is a $Y billion-dollar operation" are a lazy dodge to the question of "How are you going to make a profit with your product or service?" Lot of wishful thinking in that sentence, too.
Now let's imagine this system uses a new dedicated global currency. Let's call it Q. According to economic models, the value of all Q would be several trillion dollars.
Who administers this currency? What advantages does it grant over existing currencies (which have hundreds of years of protections built into them)? So many questions! But I'll try to play along with your thought experiment...
According to the equation of exchange in Economics, a currency’s value can be calculated using the amount of money in circulation and the frequency with which it is used (known as ”velocity of money”).
Thus, estimating $20 trillion in transactions, and using the global average velocity of money, would give all Q in circulation a value of several trillion dollars. Read a detailed economic analysis, co-authored with Prof. Lawrence H. White, an expert in Monetary Theory.
But how are we going to get to this state? It's like the guy who imagined a spaceship orbiting the Earth could exceed the speed of light by simply shrinking the Earth!
Initiative Q is reserving this Q currency for people who join today — the earlier you join the higher the incentive!
The incentives to join start off very high. Those who have the foresight to join early are eligible to reserve over a million Q, having a future value of $1 million according to our economic model. As Initiative Q is widely adopted, requiring less motivation to join, those incentives will drop correspondingly.
Eventually, there will be enough Q holders — potential buyers and sellers — to make joining Initiative Q rewarding enough without requiring extrinsic incentives. People will join simply because it’s a faster, cheaper and safer way to transact. See a detailed explanation here.
Ah, so you're going to jumpstart something with no intrinsic value by making it exclusive. The problem with that is something that free-to-play MMOs have taught me: Never underestimate the power of making more alt accounts.
This is a self-fulfilling prophecy. As millions join, advanced payment technologies are deployed, the payment system becomes even more popular, the Q currency becomes valuable, and awards to early users reach their potential value.
I'm sure the people who sign up for 100 accounts each will be very happy, much as the early adopters of buttcoin were. Also, what happens when everyone on the planet is using this new currency? I'd imagine that there would be massive infrastructure costs, which would result in large fees just to keep things running. And when people get upset with the captive market you've created, someone else comes along and offers the same thing with lower fees, which leads us back to square one....
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wat
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My guess:
A cash-out exit processing fee of 1% will apply.
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@groaner Should have been less than a minute ago. Also less than a minute from now implies time travel of <60 seconds. That's very negligible in the grand scheme of things. No space time continuum disruption yadda yadda...
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@pie_flavor said in Money from nowhere?:
@tsaukpaetra You need to verify my registration now.
? Haven't received the message.
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@groaner said in Money from nowhere?:
wat
That just means your system clock is out of sync with the TDWTF server. The ago/from now calculation is done in the client, and the timestamp on the post is in the future compared to your comupter's clock.
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What the hell is the problem with cards these days, seriously? Other than "you can pay small amounts without typing in the PIN" thing which can potentially be a bit of a risk, Chip-and-PIN cards are pretty damned secure, and with addition of RFID tech in them the only reason I ever take my card out of my wallet these days is that readers sometimes get confused by detecting 2 cards at the time (the other one being my ID). Even ATMs have RFID readers now.
And for online purchases, I'm really happy with my bank's 2FA which involves a mobile app that's tied to the phone (if I reset it and reinstall the app I need to get it activated by the bank again, so no way of someone else getting it tied to my account). It works for 2FA well, with temporary token keys and all, it's pretty damned good for actually doing payments by hand (despite the size constraints on the small screen), and its capability of reading 2D barcodes off bills means I rarely even need to type anything. My bill payment is now "take bill, point phone at it, throw the paper away" (and I also moved as many bills I could to getting delivered to me via email by my bank).
It might not be as nice in the rest of the world, but I think we got this shit sorted now, guys. You really are solving a problem that doesn't exist.
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@e4tmyl33t said in Money from nowhere?:
Maybe they'll eventually let me convert them to C-Bills or something.
A thousand years’ worth of interest is hopefully better than the inflation over that same period.
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@tsaukpaetra said in Money from nowhere?:
No fucking clue why they're not notifying me.
Because their mail server doesn't accept Qs yet?
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My invitation link:
https://initiativeq.com/invite/rWqiF4UW7
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@mrl I don't understand any of this but I clicked it anyway.
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Are they handing out free money? About time someone made a crypocurrency scam 101 guide. This shit is just tiring.
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@mrl I clicked it to, it says you need to verify my account.
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@sockpuppet7
Verified.Anyone else? Free money!
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Now it wants me to recruit more people to our little piramid, promising me more free Q in the process.
Please click the link below and give your full name and email to some suspicious people promising free things:
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@sockpuppet7 said in Money from nowhere?:
give your full name and email to some suspicious people promising free things
Hello, my name is Realname 'Onestguvn'a.
What? I'm from Nigeria, that's a common name there!
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@onyx said in Money from nowhere?:
What the hell is the problem with cards these days, seriously?
For reference, they're the very short range RFIDs; you've basically got to put the card in contact with the reader for a payment to occur (and remember that the banks' real security lies elsewhere anyway, in the ability to reverse fraudulent transactions; that is also why they're rather more careful about handing out cash, it isn't anything like so easily reversible).
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@onyx said in Money from nowhere?:
Hello, my name is Realname 'Onestguvn'a.
This last name sounds very close to "he's made of shit" in Polish. Was that intended?
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@dkf said in Money from nowhere?:
For reference, they're the very short range RFIDs; you've basically got to put the card in contact with the reader for a payment to occur
Since this basically amounts to "slam my wallet onto the reader" 99% of the time, I have no problems with this. Also, many stores support a thing where they can print a barcode I can just point my phone at as well, I just feel like futzing around with my phone is more work than waving my wallet around.
I also don't see how any new currency could make this simpler, it's at either going to involve NFC (same range), or something involving my phone (be it scanning a code or confirming stuff like, AFAIK, WeChat does). I don't see how they are solving any 0-th world problem here.
EDIT: I just realized that was probably not you disagreeing. Still, the point stands so I'm leaving it.
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@gąska said in Money from nowhere?:
@onyx said in Money from nowhere?:
Hello, my name is Realname 'Onestguvn'a.
This last name sounds very close to "he's made of shit" in Polish. Was that intended?
I'll take that lucky coincidence and run with it by saying "yes".
Edit: to clarify, it was an attempt to write "Hones, governer!" with an accent, how well it turned out, eh, close enough for me.
Filed under: Govna!
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@groaner said in Money from nowhere?:
There are many advanced payment technologies and innovations waiting to be deployed. Here are just a few examples:
- NFC on smartphones instead of a plastic card to authenticate account holders - Technically I have that with Microsoft Wallet, but I much prefer Visa payWAVE as it's both faster and more convenient. I suppose when this card wears out and my phone breaks, I'll have Android Pay.
- MFA methods to make payments more secure - We have that already: chip + PIN, chip + signature, CVV3, 3DSecure (Verified by Visa).
- AI to reduce fraud - Groaner has that, I think I do too. And my bank has far more experience and investment in combating fraud than Q does.
- one global currency to eliminate currency exchange fees - Is this an actual problem? With the spread of the Eurozone and international conglomerates, I find it unlikely that one needs to worry about this outside of vacations (which are already expensive) and border areas (where you can negotiate forex fees down quite a bit in exchange for volume and regularity).
- digital transactions to make transactions faster, safer, and cheaper. - PayPal, credit card systems, debit card systems, ACH, electronic check conversion... yeah, we got this.
You're boring me, Initiative Q. What do you got that'll really excite me?
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@twelvebaud Once the pyramid is complete, then we all sell great diet milkshakes.
Maybe step 2 is we get the chicks for free:
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Hi Everyone,
Ben from Initiative Q here.
We haven't officially launched the project. We just sent invites to a few close friends and it somehow circulated all the way to you...
See responses below. Let me know if you have more questions.
Thanks
BenToday's payment systems (credit cards, cash, wire transfers) are old and outdated, which means we’re all bearing unnecessary costs.
No, they're battle-hardened and are useful due to the associated network effects of being well-established technologies.
You are basically agreeing with us: To innovate in payments you must overcome the enormous advantage old technologies have due to network effects.
For example, open your wallet and count how many different cards you have, and how much cash you have to carry around. The technology already exists to replace your wallet with a fast and secure digital payment method.
We carry these cards around because as they compete with one another, they are checks on each other's influence.
The problem is not competition, but how silly it is that we identify our accounts with a large piece of plastic.
And we carry cash because not every vendor has the means or ability to accept credit cards, in addition to being able to handle the case that the processing systems may be offline.
Again, you are agreeing with us: Credit cards are suboptimal, causing sellers to resort to technology that is thousands of years old (cash).
Additionally, the current payment networks have been designed decades ago and their usage causes inefficient processing, fraud and rigidity — all of which translate to high costs.
There have been flaws in payment systems, yes, which have been slowly corrected. What makes your system immune to any such flaws?
See below
There are many advanced payment technologies and innovations waiting to be deployed.
Are they good ones?
See below
Here are just a few examples: NFC on smartphones instead of a plastic card to authenticate account holders; MFA methods to make payments more secure; AI to reduce fraud; one global currency to eliminate currency exchange fees; digital transactions to make transactions faster, safer, and cheaper. See more details about the improvements and innovations that a modernized payment system could offer.
Oh, NFC, you mean that gigantic security hole that has everyone putting smart cards in copper foil sheaths?
Just an example. The point is that if you were free to design a payment system from scratch, without worrying about critical mass, you would come up with much smaller and more secure ways to identify an account.
And AI for fraud detection? My bank hinted a few years ago that they had already been doing that for a while when I called to confirm a false-positive transaction. Given that my bank probably has far more resources than you do (particularly since your site reads like a pitch for funding), what makes you think you can do better?
Actually, there is very little use of advanced fraud prevention algorithms in today's payment networks. Interestingly, many of the innovations in the field were made by Initiative Q's founder, Saar Wilf (founded Fraud Sciences, acquired by PayPal).
So why don’t we already have newer, better systems? Because there’s a “chicken and egg” barrier — no buyer will join a new payment network with no sellers, and no seller will offer a new payment option that no buyer uses.
Hey, it's almost like you're beginning to grasp the flaws in your idea!
What do you mean? Initiative Q is all about overcoming this "chicken and egg" barrier.
A payment system is only useful if it’s used by a significant number of both buyers and sellers. Getting to that critical mass of users is the challenge, as people will initially be reluctant to adopt the new payment system.
This barrier has historically been the reason that previous attempts to deploy new payment systems have had limited or no success, despite offering superior functionality.
I'm gonna dispute that "superior functionality." Many of them were dreamed up by twentysomethings high on Dunning-Kruger and eager to chisel new square wheels from stone.
True for some, but not for all. Do you really think that if we were free to reinvent payments, people will be walking around with round pieces of metal in their pockets?
If someone built a modern payment system that implemented these technologies and somehow got buyers and sellers to adopt it, this system would quickly become popular. It could eventually end up seeing 20 trillion dollars in transactions per year.
"If someone built..." Aha! Got you! That implies you haven't built anything yet! I thought most sensible VCs wanted to see a functional prototype before handing over that delicious cash. NEEEEXT!
Yep, you definitely got us. There is no payment system yet. The idea of Initiative Q is "critical mass first, technology later" - for the reasons explained above.
Credit cards already account for approximately $20 trillion in transactions. Once buyers and sellers have a better option than credit cards, they would naturally prefer it whenever possible, and it would eventually reach or exceed that level.
Arguments of the form of "Industry X is a $Y billion-dollar operation" are a lazy dodge to the question of "How are you going to make a profit with your product or service?" Lot of wishful thinking in that sentence, too.
Don't follow your point. Do you disagree that a hypothetical superior network with wide adoption would process trillions of dollars a year?
Now let's imagine this system uses a new dedicated global currency. Let's call it Q. According to economic models, the value of all Q would be several trillion dollars.
Who administers this currency? What advantages does it grant over existing currencies (which have hundreds of years of protections built into them)? So many questions! But I'll try to play along with your thought experiment...
Very good point. Actually, we agree with you, so we are copying the working monetary model of governments. To quote from our economic model page:
"To meet this need, Initiative Q will feature a monetary committee that is independent of the Initiative Q corporate entity, to be appointed via voting by all stakeholders in the Q payment network"
Read more here: https://initiativeq.com/knowledge/economic-modelAccording to the equation of exchange in Economics, a currency’s value can be calculated using the amount of money in circulation and the frequency with which it is used (known as ”velocity of money”).
Thus, estimating $20 trillion in transactions, and using the global average velocity of money, would give all Q in circulation a value of several trillion dollars. Read a detailed economic analysis, co-authored with Prof. Lawrence H. White, an expert in Monetary Theory.
But how are we going to get to this state? It's like the guy who imagined a spaceship orbiting the Earth could exceed the speed of light by simply shrinking the Earth!
How do we get there?
- Get a critical mass of users, who join only for the free Qs.
- Then you can build a superior payment network without worrying about adoption.
- Everyone prefer to use it because it's cheaper, faster, safer.
- Qs have value ("the equation of exchange")
Initiative Q is reserving this Q currency for people who join today — the earlier you join the higher the incentive!
The incentives to join start off very high. Those who have the foresight to join early are eligible to reserve over a million Q, having a future value of $1 million according to our economic model. As Initiative Q is widely adopted, requiring less motivation to join, those incentives will drop correspondingly.
Eventually, there will be enough Q holders — potential buyers and sellers — to make joining Initiative Q rewarding enough without requiring extrinsic incentives. People will join simply because it’s a faster, cheaper and safer way to transact. See a detailed explanation here.
Ah, so you're going to jumpstart something with no intrinsic value by making it exclusive. The problem with that is something that free-to-play MMOs have taught me: Never underestimate the power of making more alt accounts.
Note that all users in Initiative Q must be invited and verified by an existing user. In the future, all users will undergo additional verification, and people who approved fake users will lose their rewards. This reduces the ability to claim multiple incentives - not to zero, but close to it.
This is a self-fulfilling prophecy. As millions join, advanced payment technologies are deployed, the payment system becomes even more popular, the Q currency becomes valuable, and awards to early users reach their potential value.
I'm sure the people who sign up for 100 accounts each will be very happy, much as the early adopters of buttcoin were. Also, what happens when everyone on the planet is using this new currency? I'd imagine that there would be massive infrastructure costs, which would result in large fees just to keep things running. And when people get upset with the captive market you've created, someone else comes along and offers the same thing with lower fees, which leads us back to square one....
- When you design a payment system correctly, you can reduce transaction costs to a fraction of what they are today.
- Definitely possible that we will have competitors. We'll just have to try to be the best.
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time
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@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
The problem is not competition, but how silly it is that we identify our accounts with a large piece of plastic.
What's silly about it? Have you noticed that we use pieces of plastic to identify ourselves? Also, I think we have vastly different definitions of "large."
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
Actually, there is very little use of advanced fraud prevention algorithms in today's payment networks.
Maybe that's a hint?
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
Qs have value ("the equation of exchange")
Aside from selling a few for dollars eventually, I see that it's essentially a private fiat system, which I find a very interesting idea that's almost certainly bound to fail.
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@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
Hi Everyone,
Ben from Initiative Q here.Awesome. You got a pair of extremely yellow boxing gloves by chance?
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
You are basically agreeing with us: To innovate in payments you must overcome the enormous advantage old technologies have due to network effects.
Is innovation in payments really something we need?
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
The problem is not competition, but how silly it is that we identify our accounts with a large piece of plastic.
Well no, the account is an account number and a routing number. The card is just a handy window into it.
What's your idea for a way to "solve" this problem? Do you tattoo it on my arm?
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
Again, you are agreeing with us: Credit cards are suboptimal, causing sellers to resort to technology that is thousands of years old (cash).
Old != bad.
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
Just an example. The point is that if you were free to design a payment system from scratch, without worrying about critical mass, you would come up with much smaller and more secure ways to identify an account.
Yeah; but I guess the question is: have you? Or is this all just mouth-farting attached to a pyramid scheme?
It seems to me that if you have any solutions you should actually write about those on the FAQ.
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
Actually, there is very little use of advanced fraud prevention algorithms in today's payment networks. Interestingly, many of the innovations in the field were made by Initiative Q's founder, Saar Wilf (founded Fraud Sciences, acquired by PayPal).
Ok, first of all, that is totally a made-up name. Sincerely, Daar Tyger.
Secondly, do you have better fraud prevention AI than, say, Bank of America's? Again, maybe that should be the thing you talk about in the FAQ. That's something you could sell.
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
True for some, but not for all. Do you really think that if we were free to reinvent payments, people will be walking around with round pieces of metal in their pockets?
People of the past weren't stupid. If you were free to reinvent payments in 1800, damn straight you'd be walking around with pantaloons full of round pieces of metal.
Now you are right that 2018 technology allows for better ways of carrying value, that's pretty obvious. What we don't know is what you have that's better than what VISA has.
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
Yep, you definitely got us. There is no payment system yet. The idea of Initiative Q is "critical mass first, technology later" - for the reasons explained above.
So right now you only have the pyramid scheme part. Great.
I want my fucking $52,000, you bastard. Gimme my moneys!
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
Don't follow your point. Do you disagree that a hypothetical superior network with wide adoption would process trillions of dollars a year?
It probably would! If you had one. Which you don't. You just said you don't. You just have the pyramid scheme.
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
Very good point. Actually, we agree with you, so we are copying the working monetary model of governments. To quote from our economic model page:
"To meet this need, Initiative Q will feature a monetary committee that is independent of the Initiative Q corporate entity, to be appointed via voting by all stakeholders in the Q payment network"Which is funny, because the majority of people who are into alternative currencies are interested in them because they think the government's going to fall any day now and all your cash-dollars will be worthless! Also fractional lending is evil Jewish magic, etc!
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
How do we get there?
Get a critical mass of users, who join only for the free Qs.
Then you can build a superior payment network without worrying about adoption.
Everyone prefer to use it because it's cheaper, faster, safer.
Qs have value ("the equation of exchange")Fuck your Q's, gimme my money.
- Get a critical mass of users, who join only for the free Qs
- ???
- Profit!
Not a lot of South Park fans at your company I assume.
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
Note that all users in Initiative Q must be invited and verified by an existing user. In the future, all users will undergo additional verification, and people who approved fake users will lose their rewards. This reduces the ability to claim multiple incentives - not to zero, but close to it.
So you put in weasel words so you don't have you give me my moneys.
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
When you design a payment system correctly, you can reduce transaction costs to a fraction of what they are today.
How?
Seriously how.
Bitcoin came up with a really shitty one that doesn't, for example, have any way whatsoever to reverse transactions, and they still have far higher transaction fees than VISA or Mastercard will give you.
There are better cryptos, but none have demonstrated the ability to scale to VISA or Mastercard quantities of transactions while keeping the fees lower than the VISA or Mastercard fees, plus the vast majority of them don't even have the features those companies provide. (Like, for example, the ability to charge-back fraudulent transactions.)
So far everybody in this space has given us less features, less capacity, for more transaction fees.
So the question is: how exactly are you going to do it? Fine; you have this network-effect head-start of dozens of suckers who think they have $50,000 coming to them because they're idiot suckers (which, BTW, I doubt it even remotely as valuable as you think-- it didn't work out very well for Klout), how do you translate that into solving this problem?
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
Definitely possible that we will have competitors. We'll just have to try to be the best.
Competition in... pyramid schemes? Because that's all you got right now.
(And yeah, Herbalife's got you beat.)
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Quit fucking around and someone tell me where do I sign up, how do I collect the moneys, and how long the whole thing s gonna take.
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@blakeyrat said in Money from nowhere?:
Awesome. You got a pair of extremely yellow boxing gloves by chance?
oh the memories
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@stillwater said in Money from nowhere?:
Quit fucking around and someone tell me where do I sign up, how do I collect the moneys, and how long the whole thing s gonna take.
Here use my link:
Initiative Q is building a new payment network. To get people to adopt it, they’re giving away significant sums of their future currency to early users. They require only name, email, and an invite from an existing user. Here’s my invite link: https://initiativeq.com/invite/HgJ5X1LWm
And if you're on the ground floor like Raam Lyon up there is saying, maybe we'll be able to cash out before the whole thing collapses. But don't bet on it.
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@tsaukpaetra said in Money from nowhere?:
Got you. No fucking clue why they're not notifying me.
Their infrastructure can't keep up with the demand? (After all, TDWTF is now involved!)
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@boomzilla said in Money from nowhere?:
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
The problem is not competition, but how silly it is that we identify our accounts with a large piece of plastic.
What's silly about it? Have you noticed that we use pieces of plastic to identify ourselves? Also, I think we have vastly different definitions of "large."
Why carry anything other than my smartphone?
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
Actually, there is very little use of advanced fraud prevention algorithms in today's payment networks.
Maybe that's a hint?
Nope. It's due to technical limitations.
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
Qs have value ("the equation of exchange")
Aside from selling a few for dollars eventually, I see that it's essentially a private fiat system, which I find a very interesting idea that's almost certainly bound to fail.
Maybe it will, maybe it won't. Let's see.
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@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
Why carry anything other than my smartphone?
Because it doesn't fit in my wallet, and thus can be more easily stolen? Because if I drop it it very well could be destroyed when a credit card (or checkbook-- GASP! Hundred year old technology!) would be perfectly fine? Because there was an earthquake and I badly need fresh water but the cell towers are all destroyed?
You seriously can't think of a single reason?
There are countries in Europe that went almost all-digital but are actually trying to re-introduce cash payments due to concerns like those above. (Especially the earthquakes or cell towers being down due to cyber-warfare ones.) (Sadly I can't remember what country it was... Denmark maybe? So I can't find the article I read about that a few weeks ago.)
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
Nope. It's due to technical limitations.
Limitations your company won't also have ... ... ... why?
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@initiativeq I don't think you're going to get anywhere unless sellers can get paid in something that is actually valuable to them -- i.e. real currency that they can spend elsewhere. The barrier to entry for a whole new currency is just too high unless it can be converted back into real money if needed. It's hard enough to get people to buy in to new currencies even when they can convert to and from dollars as needed.
You can give people free e-bucks as much as you want, but unless they can spend them on something useful, they're just Qs sitting in an account. Can I pay my rent or the electric bill with Qs? Can I buy gas, groceries with them? Then I certainly wouldn't want to accept them for anything I wanted to sell. I think you greatly underestimate the barrier to entry; I as a buyer can't buy anything with them, because nobody as a seller wants to accept them, because then they'd just be Qs sitting in their account.
How do you intend to actually become a marketplace?
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@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
Why carry anything other than my smartphone?
No product or even an idea of what it would be, but high level of hipstery delusions. I foresee great future ahead of you.
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@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
Why carry anything other than my smartphone?
There's still HUGE swaths of land that have zero cell coverage? (Like my neighborhood. Gee, thanks AT&T - and all those NIMBY's who block new cell towers)
Quahl
