What are Ginko Bonds worth?

Dont think it would matter anyhow. There is absolutely nothing stopping LL from having a monopoly on anything in Second Life.

In fact they already have a rather significant one. They have a monopoly of Virtual Land.

Why would a high risk, high interest fund intending to pay people back, invest in GOLD? One of the most traditionally low risk, low interest of all investments?

Every dollar invested in gold would be a dollar not earning the interest he would need to cover depositior's debts.

Well if he actually intended to pay them back, of course.

True. But even so, LL doesn't really care if someone has a monopoly. It's nigh impossible to maintain, if you even could get one.

I think Nick did intend to pay everyone back, much like Charles Ponzi. He invested in gold to diversify. Plus, gold and other precious metals were doing extremely well in the markets. My rl bank's precious metals mutual fund was getting massive returns, of 34%. In this day and age when credit is precarious and the dollar is being printed and used like a dime store ho, reliable things like gold and silver gain more value.

Yeah - its a completely baseless point.

Even if you had a monopoly on every single aspect of Secondlife it wouldnt matter becuase theres dozen of other virtual worlds on the internet.

Secondlife could never be a monopoly in the Fed's eyes just becuase of somthing as simple as World of Warcraft.


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Even a monopoly INSIDE of Secondlife is pointless.

If the lindens have it , its just them running the place , since its their sand box.

If a resident has it - they can change the rules on them to make it go away.

Besides which the start up costs are so small for any venture in Secondlife, like you said - maintaining a monopoly is impossible.

While interesting the rate of return is as high as 34%

34% would be 26% too low to pay his obligations ..

I didn't do the math, I thought Ben said it was 44% return annually. 10 shy isn't too bad of a loss, not if you made it up in land sales/loans inworld.

I'm trying to actualy figure out what you said but since you dont really say anything i'm assuming you yourself doesn't know what your saying or you would have clarified

as for WSE chat anytime i saw any it was more of people trying to learn about the exchange which is what its purpose was for actualy to help newbies out in the WSE and everyone would tell em to shut up but it was quite clear that people could ask how to use the stupid exchange.

Seems you have a different idea of what it was for but anyhow since i never said a single word in my entire membership there and didn't see a whole lot of chatter most of the time it was a pretty quiet group.

In any event now the just talk about it in another group nothing is changed I have no idea how people think stiffling chat in one channel will prevent anything. I looked up the replacement WSE groups today and some of them are huge. I just cant be bothered anymore if i need any info i will just ask the guy at the lobby in the exchange..

Was meaning that 60+ % Nick was promissing before any of the runs.

Ill admit sounds liek gold is performing better now then it used to. Sounds like people would have been better off buying gold Off world then investing in Ginko.

If you figure in an 85% loss on your investment, and a promise to pay you a pecentage of returns that you never got, well, god bless.

I don't understand. I thought that the compounded interest that Ginko promised over a year was 44% cumulatively. I didn't do the math myself.

I agree with you Dzonatas.

I think option (2) should be the way forward, in particular I am aware of at least two companies within Second Life that promote financial services in first life, that is Reuters and ABM Amro.

Due process should also be upheld. It is an insult to us all within Second Life to think someone can take deposits up to three quarters of a million US dollars AND not be required to prove due care and diligences in first life.

If Second Life is promoting itself as a platform, using technology that just might be the precursor to a 3D web, I can understand their reluctance to interfere with personal residents disputes. After all if I make a bad investment in first life via the Net, I would not have a legal case against Microsoft.

But, at present things are different. For a start the software that powers Second Life is not open source, it lives more or less on servers based in the USA, and is subject to US law. The gaming issue proved that. Also (and unlike Microsoft) Linden are Gods within world. Microsoft does not have god powers over the entire Internet

That is the core basis for my own views on in game/platform financial services. People or companies that promote financial services within Second Life should be authorised in first life to be legal.

Finally, and ultimately, if this was the case I suspect many more people would be minded to re-review some investment prospects within platform, which might include the WSE. This would benefit us all, which includes Linden, as it may drive more traffic. The reason why is in the event of potential wrong doing there would be potential recourse

Although I agree with the conclusions, this quoted bit seems to have several ideas kind of jumbled together that aren't all necessary to the line of reasoning (as I understand it), or maybe just a kind of shorthand notation for what's intended.

First, I think the gaming issue arose not because the server location fixed SL to USA law, but because LL wants to continue to collect payments via the internet from US-based credit card companies and PayPal. Even if all the servers were in Mumbai and LL headquartered in Barbados, they'd want folks to be able to pay tier and membership with US credit cards, so as long as the L$ has some kind of value (not even necessarily convertible to RL currency), gambling could be problematic.

The open-sourcing of server code is relevant, but I think only to the extent that, with open-sourcing, LL could divest itself of some of the exclusive control it currently holds and--with a lot of careful work by counsel--make at least some part of its business operate as a common carrier, which would absolve it of a bunch of liability that the current model at least implies. That would make it more like an ISP of "the 3D Web." But server open-sourcing, per se, is neither necessary nor sufficient for this.

On a different side of this thread: I've never really followed how L$ convertibility to RL currency makes much difference from a legal standpoint. As long as a resident can sell on eBay (say) the source code for a script or the image of a texture, those assets have RL value whether or not they're in-world. However they may be traded in-world, as soon as assets (or L$s) are sold for RL currency, they represent taxable income. And the L$ is a kind of "currency" if it can be used to buy something that can in turn be sold for RL money. Seems to me just wishful thinking to suppose that closing the Lindex would have any impact at all.

I see what you mean. It is a little like WoW Gold. Blizzard seem to tolerate the sale of Gold over the net, thus powering the economy there, but are not involved in it themselves by the WoW equal of the LindeX. Yet rare armour and weapons cost money, for example the current weapon I own is worth around 400 Gold, or say £10/$20/ or $L5, 500. So fine, you get gold farmers and resource collectors, but they add value, rather than hurt people like Ginko may do

But "over there" I have not seen the issues contained within this thread. Sure if you want to spend money there are plenty of ways to do so. The other day I saw a collection of around six avatars for sale (you can own up to 50 per account), all high level and all with complimentary professions. The cost was $1,200 US but what you were buying was a complete supporting machine. If you are really into WoW it may be worth it, indeed a years subscription to a golf club would cost you a great deal more than that, and WoW is a hobby like golf.

For now I believe virtual worlds should be for fun with perhaps an educational/research subset. I have nothing against normal commercial advertising by real life companies or the likes of the Estate Manager/Scripter/Texture/Builder within SL, who provide a valuable add on service, but I don't want to see ordinary folk hurt by so called "virtual financial services" that are dangerous

That's a quick accussation without merit.

If working over details take more than one message, than we can do that. I wouldn't expect you to perfectly describe anything in one-shot.

I've been on here, asked questions and shared knowledge, in order to clarify what happened. I like to know myself, and it seems, maybe, like you want to know.



When the group originally started, it was less small in comparison to what it was when it got pulled.



Many times I've had meetings in-world and it was very common for conversations to appear in the WSE chat. There was a minimize feature on the IM windows that would help put it aside out of normal chat window, but the availabity of that minimize box changed through through releases in Second Life. There was no secondary option in group dialog windows to just uncheckmark a box that says "Receive group chat."



Yes they exist, but they are not seen as official talk as under the WSE group. I found the gentlemen at the lobby very helpful.

It is more of the entire internetworked features of virtual worlds and their economies that will have an impact than just the event of open-sourced servers. The open-source means, however, is a route that can help speed-up the availibility of such features.

Selling gold and items gathered in WoW is in fact against their TOS, but like any game there is a market for it and like with any game they are constantly banning hundreds if not thousands of accounts in one fell swoop in order to keep it in check. The only game that allows the sale of items and money legally is sony and the game is EQ2. They did this because it was totally uncontrollable and people were getting ripped off so they decided to simply buckle under and create the market themselves in an effort to exert some control over this practice which is not usually allowed. Farmers always have ruined games and still do if they are allowed to get out of hand and WoW is no different. Its a lot of work keeping ahead of these guys because it is their livelihood and so usually once they are banned in less then a week they have all gotten new accounts levelled up new characters and started all over again with a new IP adress.

Their presence however is unwanted by players and against terms of service by the gaming company itself. People spend a lot of time reporting them and trying to compete with them for game content and its very "unfun" at times because fights break out in areas dominated by farmers who have managed to make it unplayable by people who actualy buy the game for its intended entertainment purpose

They also have a monopoly on Lindens. They could print them and cash them in for real money. How nice. The way it is set up is blatently wrong, even if the system as it is, was intially created with no devious plan in mind.

With a few sentences in a blog, they can also manipulate the inworld economy and make it turn on a dime or they can screw it up in a moment with a few careless sentences.

For residents, we can collude together and drive prices down or up for any fictional item(s) if we had any unity and the will to do so and there are no rules and regs in place regarding en masse collusion and even if there was, it would mean banning en masse. We can all be part of an elaborate pyramid/ponzi scheme, relying on a constant influx of new suckers.

No matter how you look at it, the entire problem goes back to this remarkable ability of a fictional thing, the L$, to become real. As soon as that happens, then the entire weight of Real Life Law, rules and regs, scams and attorneys, become present. Whoopie. So much for Virtual.

They can and do.

I was intially surprized by the whole Supply Linden idea for the reasons you describe.

I take your point, indeed in my own opinion a player prepared to get out his or her credit card and buy Gold does obtain some advantages within WoW, although that advantage diminishes as you pass up the ranks, the reason being many rare items are what are called "bind on pick up" rather than "bind on equip", thus making them not tradable, and the Gold or equipment you naterally get on kills increases as you level up thus making Gold purchases less needed

BUT, an important point, players within WoW are in nearly all cases playing the game as a game, RATHER than setting up "virtual investments" that in some cases have the potential to cause real first life financial harm.

Within SL you could advance the debate to argue that most secondary services supplied by residents for profit or gain should not exist. In particular the land barons.

However I am fairly relaxed about profit or gain within virtual worlds FOR virtual world products or services.

What I am AGAINST is extending that principle into first life products or services WITHOUT due first life protections.

For example, one commercial site within Second Life is Dell computers. If I were to buy a new Dell computer from within Second Life I would enjoy full legal protection under first life law.

The same protection should apply to first life financial services that within Second Life are marketed as "virtual investments"

In the absence of any new News I think this thread is approaching its natural death. I think most of us here are of a similar mind on the core issues.

The next step (if anyone is interested) is to take this issue further to seek to lobby for change with Linden Labs on the issue of in world financial services, AND to give consideration to some type of action group to review the legal position re Ginko.

I personally cannot run such groups, but would be prepared to consider participating on an advisory basis. In terms of declaring any self-interest I have no material first life monies with either Ginko (deposits or bonds) or the WSE

But in my own opinion I don't think this BB is the place to start such groups. That is best done either in world or via another dedicated website.

The starting point if people are interested is to set up a SL Group, IM me in world (I log on several times weekly) and I will join the group on an initial trial no obligation basis

Finally thanks to the moderator and Linden Labs for allowing this thread to continue

I have a question-

In the US, in San Francisco, does someone need any sort of credintial to open up an online investment plan?


If so, why should people in SL be allowed to bypass this requirement?

I noticed that the ginko website is now gone

My predictions for the first quarterly payout of the gonko "bonds" is as follows:

Ponzi Operator: Well our "investments" didn't preform as expected so we will not be paying any interest this quarter. In lieu of payment we will be giving you the interest in the equivelent amount of more ginko "bonds".

Depositors: "WTF!?!"

Ponzi Operator: Thank you for your continued patience during these trying times.

If you are wrong and even a little bit is paid, are you willing to match what is paid?

You left out the sounds of the RAVE in the background, funded by all the money he "invested"