{"id":10522,"date":"2018-10-24T19:42:10","date_gmt":"2018-10-24T19:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/?p=10522"},"modified":"2018-11-09T08:36:03","modified_gmt":"2018-11-09T08:36:03","slug":"initiative-q-is-doing-the-rounds-again-and-heres-qs-economist-on-bitcoin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/2018\/10\/24\/initiative-q-is-doing-the-rounds-again-and-heres-qs-economist-on-bitcoin\/","title":{"rendered":"Initiative Q is doing the rounds again \u2014 and here’s Q’s economist on Bitcoin"},"content":{"rendered":"

In June, I posted about Initiative Q<\/a> \u2014 a startup that plans a new payment network and its own private currency.<\/p>\n

Initiative Q<\/a> is collecting email addresses, and asking each respondent to get their friends to sign up for future Q tokens\u00a0\u2014 right now, hurry hurry!<\/em><\/p>\n

Initiative Q isn’t a cryptocurrency\u00a0\u2014 but it has a lot of similar bad ideas.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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The viral spam comes around again<\/h3>\n

My June post has taken off again \u2014 I’m seeing it all over Facebook, and the article’s gone from 500 hits most days to 4,000 hits on Monday, 24,000 yesterday and 30,000 so far today. It’s literally the third-most-popular thing I have ever written, anywhere, in my entire life.<\/p>\n

(Sign up to get blog posts by email!<\/a> Buy a book!<\/a> Sponsor the site!<\/a> Get me in to do a talk!<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Given it’s still the only<\/em> detailed third-party post on what Initiative Q actually is so far, I expect this to continue.<\/p>\n

Yesterday morning, my stepdaughter posted the article link on her Facebook, to get her more gullible friends to stop advertising this rubbish \u2014 what a well-brought-up young woman.<\/p>\n

I recorded an interview about Initiative Q for BBC 5 Live “Up All Night,” which was broadcast around 4:46am this morning. It’s here on iPlayer<\/a> for UK readers (3:46 on), and I’ve put the audio up here<\/a> for non-UK readers. I think this is the first<\/em> coverage of Initiative Q in mainstream media.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, my post to Reddit \/r\/buttcoin<\/a> on the subject is filling afresh with Initiative Q promoters, spamming their referral links. They also keep trying to comment on my previous post with referral links. With fans like that, initiativeq.com has a great<\/em> future in social media URL blacklists.<\/p>\n

What is Initiative Q?<\/h3>\n

Per my previous post,<\/a> Initiative Q has three stages:<\/p>\n