Tomorrow's Currency? Maybe not...

That's right, a final recommendation after only a month of utilizing it. The fastest, and first recommendation I have made!

So in my previous article about Initiative Q, I mentioned that there was a 14 day timer to refer 5 friends for additional Q per referral and I was unsure of what happened when I would (inevitably) fail to refer 5 people to Q. 

• Would my rewards diminish? 
• Would it reset each time and you had to hit 5 in order to get those rewards?
• Would rewards stop entirely?

For those of you who were curious, here it is:

Welcome to the Future! I feel like I've seen this before...

It looks as if, if you do not invite those 5 friends within 14 days, you will no longer be able to earn Q on those initial 5 Referrals, that's pretty awesome, look, YOU can still do ALL of the work for NO reward. However, once you refer 5 people, you will gain a new task that will allow you to get additional Q after. Oh, awesome! MAYBE we'll reward you after you do all that work.

So I looked up what that next task would be: Refer 10 Friends in 14 Days. Woo! 

This really doesn't seem very useful and, while I do think that the team is at least somewhat reliable, this is a relatively awful way to handle referrals. I don't think I recommend this to anyone except somebody who is 100% sure they can continue to gain referrals at a very fast pace. 

You can try your luck here if you want. Though, scroll down further and you'll see I do not recommend it.

In total, I earned about 3000Q, which, if it ever gets value, I suppose isn't bad. If it reaches even 25 cents thats $750. But also I am officially designating Initiative Q as a waste of time for 90% of users.

Here are my reasons:

• I think the app, its currency, and almost everything about it is entirely speculative, with less use-case than most cryptocurrencies, which are on the riskier side of speculative investments.
• The app fails to properly create value or any sort of good feeling in consistently and slowly referring people to their network. Instead, they create urgency, fear, and punish users for not referring 'fast enough'. That is more like a cult, a pyramid scheme, or a ponzi scheme. 
• The average person simply cannot 100% convince 5, 10, 15 people to join a speculative, crypto related app like this in just 14 days. 
• There's nothing to do beyond recruiting, and there's no benefit now, and there will likely be no benefit in the future either. Even the owner speculates that they should not be held accountable if this doesn't work.
• Finally, even if it does work, I do not believe the currency will reach the value that is claimed, nor do I believe it will reach a very high value at all. That being said, I would absolutely love for it to, but wanting something to have value and actually researching and deciding something has value are different things.

Unless you have a larger follower base who would be interested in this site, and unless you can consistently get them to sign up in 2 week periods, this will not earn you anything worthwhile.

I think it's an awful system, and I hate to see it confirmed but this is pretty much a pyramid scheme, where you are pressured to rapidly rope in as many people as you can with a carrot being dangled in front of you. Except, the carrot gets taken away if you don't do it in time, but don't worry you can still earn later after you do all the things we want you to and who knows what time limit you'll have then.

I was planning to give each app or game 1 year before I made decisions about them, but this one has forced me to make a decision within the first 2 weeks: It sucks, it's a pyramid scheme, and you will only get any value out of this if you are able to naturally influence a large number of people in a very short time.

Things that might improve or make me return to this, should an Initative Q person ever happen to see this:

• Don't eliminate the reward entirely for missing your ridiculously small rewards window. I don't think there's anything wrong with reducing the reward, but eliminating it is, to be completely blunt, a jackass move reserved for pyramid and ponzi schemes. Assuming you aren't one, act like it.
• Smaller Q Rewards per Referral over a long term without a time limit: At least this way a person could invest time into getting referrals. Think how Acorns has time limited referral bonuses but always gives a small bonus per referral. This is because Acorns actually creates a value. Clearly Initative Q is not, or it would reward its users properly for continued referrals.
• Offer additional value propositions, or create some type of value for your network. I'm not against using the network's information to crowdfund, I am against that being the only thing you plan to do as you hand over worthless imaginary currency that isn't even real yet (in the sense that a cryptocurrency is actually on a blockchain and operated and verified, for instance)
• For a site obsessed with referrals and networking, it not only doesn't reward you properly for networking. It actually deters a large amount of its user base from ever referring again. anyone who referred less than 3 people in the first 14 days is very unlikely to make reward-less referrals to get a new chance to earn referrals that they won't make in time.

Yeah thats a no from me.

Ultimately this is NOT a site/app that I recommend using at all, unless you are a person who can gain a large amount of referrals in a very short time, consistently and frequently, with no windows of greater than 14 Days. In reality, this would be difficult for most average people.

If Initiative Q ever actually hits 1USD, it would technically be worth it, but I highly doubt this will be the case based on my research and the apps' setup and the team's personality when it comes to engaging its users.

For others, who were like yeah, well duh: Yeah, I know it was pretty obvious from the beginning, but the point of CasualCrypto is to give each opportunity a chance, and to try to inform newcomers who are looking for free or very cheap opportunities about the different things they can find and whether or not they are worth it or not. We strive to give open and objective tutorials and entry points into different games, apps, and wallets, and we will speculate on, and develop a bias based on our interactions with those games, apps, and wallets. This means we will point out the possibility of a pyramid scheme at the beginning, like we did here, but we will still give it a chance, in order to confirm, or waive our suspicions.

Thanks for taking the time to read this! Unfortunately, this app/game did not work out and this will likely be the first of many. I will do my best to notify you of my opinions and finalizing a decision to recommend or not recommend a game as soon as I am sure. Generally, I like to give at least 6 months to a year, but Initiative Q is so devoid of content and devoid of any sort of value proposition that I am sure about my decision in less than 1 month. If you'd like to see new and upcoming opportunities to earn and get in on the crypto space, as well as NFTs and general investment advice, be sure to tip and follow! Thanks again!

Since this is the first official recommendation from Casual Crypto, I do not have a page yet to see each of the games, apps, and programs that I participate in with their official designations as Recommended or Not Recommended. As I make new decisions, check back here for a list that will be constantly updated with recommendations! Eventually, you will be able to see them in list format, with either Recommended, Maybe Recommended, or Not Recommended, with a small description of why I chose this distinction, and any caveats I have to where it might be recommended OR not recommended to a specific type person.