Initiative Q - Is It Legit?

By now you've likely seen some posts about a new digital payment system called Initiative Q. It doesn't exist yet, but it's something that is being worked on. At this point, you can only get involved via referral link, but before you sign up for anything, it's always a good idea to do some research. Here's what I've learned, and my resultant opinions about the project. Let's start with what Initiative Q is not.

Initiative Q is NOT a cryptocurrency
Proof of Work cryptos have been increasingly criticized for the massive amount of energy required for their distribution and use. By contrast, since Q's are distributed via this sign up process, there is relatively little computing power used by the network. There are no complex mathematical problems involved in the distribution or the verification of transmission of Q, therefore, while it certainly aims to be a digital currency, it is not a cryptocurrency.

Initiative Q is NOT being built by PayPal
I can find no evidence linking PayPal to this project. According to their website, Initiative Q is the brainchild of Saar Wilf, who built a payment security system that was later purchased by PayPal. This does not mean that Initiative Q is being created, funded, or otherwise adopted by PayPal. It does appear that the team behind it is solid, and made up of experts from various disciplines who have all come together to create this new payment system. But PayPal does not appear to be behind this.

Initiative Q is NOT a pyramid scheme
While it does share some of the hallmarks of a pyramid structure, they're not asking for any money. All they're asking for is your name and email. You do get a referral bonus for signing people up, and those people also get a bonus for signing people up, but as far as I can tell, you don't get bonuses for the people 2 levels down from you. They also limit the number of people who you can sign up with your referral link. This makes me think they really are just trying to get a lot of people from diverse backgrounds to sign up. They have to distribute it somehow for free, and this seems as valid as anything.

So, is it a scam?
There are a couple of things on their website that made me wonder if it was valid. Specifically, their site makes the comparison that signing up for your free Q's is like if someone gave you free Bitcoins seven years ago. This is a bit of a red flag, as it's the same technique of FOMO used to try to sell people on scammy ICOs. However, since they're not actually selling anything, I decided to try it out. I signed up and here is the result.

As promised, I am now the proud owner of 14,009 currently worthless Q, with more promised if I sign more people up. So far, everything that was promised has been delivered.

All this leads me to believe that Initiative Q is a valid, legitimate operation. Whether it will amount to anything tangible remains to be seen, but the project seems to be real and seems to have actual experts involved, with actual experience in financial systems. It seems worth a shot to me, but please do your own research and decide for yourself by checking out their website.

If, after looking into it, you decide you'd like to be involved, you can sign up with my link (assuming you're one of the first five people to do so): https://initiativeq.com/invite/SLbBuyuX7

If you do use my link, let me know in the comments, so I can verify you.