WSE - Current Status

You begin to wonder if some of these bank/exchange scams are College Thesis experiments trying to prove how gullible people can be.

In the beginning at IPO stage Brodsky a fair statement on a $L1 for $L1 basis, and I intend no disrespect for your comment and post

But don’t forget after the IPO for every seller there is a buyer (until of course the company folds or the WSE closes). Some of those stocks were very heavily traded

Some honest business folk may be in a position where SL investors own part of their business and profit, expressed in Linden dollars, and now may be forced to buy WICs or further Linden dollars to pay them off/pay dividends

That means that as a market maker and exchange the WSE is holding a fair amount of Linden dollars in stock and/or in cash as expressed as Linden dollars as an end game, with trading suspended

Just a view based on the pod cast, and will await events with interest. Difficult times for all

Absolutely. But we can only try and guess that figure.

*raises hand*

Erm... not me. Never went near WSE. Probably a lot of others in the same situation.

Though granted, if WSE imploded it might affect some residents I deal with, and thus touch me indirectly. Maybe.

I have only one thing to say to all this:

There is a sucker born every minute
Each time the second hand sweeps to the top
Like dandelions up they pop,
Their ears so big, their eyes so wide.
And though I feed ‘em bonafide baloney
With no truth in it
Why you can bet I’ll find some rube to buy my corn.
‘Cause there’s a sure-as-shooting sucker born a minute,
And I’m referrin’ to the minute you were born.

Each blessed hour brings sixty of ‘em
Each time the wooden cuckoo shows his face
Another sucker takes his place,
And plunks his quarter on the line
To buy my brand of genuine malarkey.
God bless and love ‘em!
But don’t feel sad or hoppin’ mad or cause a scene
‘Cause there’s a sure-as-shooting sucker born a minute,
But Ma’am you mighta been the minute in between.

If I allow that right here in my hands
The smallest living human man
The sight of that is surely worth a dime
If I present an educated pooch
Who’s trained to dance the hoochie cooch
What better way to waste a bit of time
If I imported monumental cost
A lady, fair, who’s head was lost
While crossing railroad tracks to pick some zinnias
Who eats farina through a hose
And wares pink tights instead of clothes
If that ain’t worth a buck my name ain’t Phineas

Aw you say that’s hog wash well who cares
You’ll buy my hog was long as

There’s a sucker born every minute
Each time the second hand sweeps to the top
Like dandelions up they pop,
Their ears so big, their eyes so wide.
And though my tale is bonafide baloney,
Just let me spin it,
And ain’t no man who can resist me wait and see
‘Cause there’s a sure-as-shooting sucker born a minute,
And friends the biggest one excluding none is me!

No kidding.

well...if anyone has sold 10 plus sims to anyone else..Id check to see if theyre holdings are in the WSE. I saw this coming over a year ago..just been waiting.

~Lana

Well to be frank I would ponder on the position of say a WSE shareholder in a multiple Sim rental business listed on the WSE. Until the WSE closed late Jan/early Feb, those shares may have been freely traded on the WSE and have been receiving dividends on a monthly basis from Sim rental income.

So, where do both classes stand now?

The Sim owner has his or her rights to ownership of those Sims legally recognized by Linden Labs as sole owner.

On the other hand, thee may be some legal ground for the shareholder to argue he or she has some legal rights to ownership via the shareholdings in proportune.

Both classes may be unwilling to either purchase or receive WICs in terms of either receiving dividends or share sales/purchases

Private Island Sims cannot be divided in terms of legal ownership via Linden Labs.

So, does the Sim owner purchase back the shareholding via paying Lindens direct to the shareholder? That is messy but the fairest solution, although it places a financial obligation on the Sim owner.

The WSE have currently stated they will not refund Linden dollars to shareholders.

All this could be nasty and messy, and if the sums of money are large enough could involve first life legal action.

To conclude on my point.

I PERSONALLY thought about punting around $1,000 US into such a Sim rental business. It was the one type of business I (and many others here) could understand and recognise as a valid honest business.

I did not for the reasons posted above.

But I know a lot of folk did........and for $1,000 US I would be talking to a lawyer

Probably adding a transaction fees while the 'currency' changes from L$'s, to your native currency (probably through your CC or Paypal), then another transaction fee to 'buy' Dicks?... Do you have to bend over to make a deposit?

I'll give you a plywood cube for all your WICs, I'll even make it full permissions

If the WSE isn't refunding linden you can bet theres a money trail somewhere. They're not refunding because they're unable to refund..they are "choosing" not to refund.I would bet on it

~Lana

P.S. I came VERY close to posting my own online buisness there and "something" kept telling me.."this isn't right". I even went as far as to register on the website but never posted anything. I also had a few oppurtunities to build for these people and opted out because they never wanted to pay cash upfront..there was always some type of "tradeoff" involving being given shares in this or that. I'm sooo glad i listened to that small wee voice.

Just a quick note that around here (RL) W.I.C. stands for "Woman with Infant Child". WIC checks are issued by the state welfare system to new mothers in need. They can only be "cashed" at grocery stores, and only in exchange for certain basic food products. What precisely can be bought with a given check is itemized on the individual check. It depends on the mother's situation.

If I had a WIC, I'd rather it be one those checks than a virtual currency. At least I could use the WIC check to buy some OJ. mmmmm o.j. Maybe we should find out if they are interchangeable.

Edit: forgot to mention - the checks are blank. The grocery store cashier checks that the kinds and quantities written on the check match what the person has purchased, and fills in the amount.

I just watched the whole announcement. That's some grade A bullshit he's pitching there.

Interestingly, although he's converting everyone else's Lindens into his 'fictional' WICs, he's going to be receiving dividends from Second Life companies in Linden dollars, but paying those dividends to shareholders in WICs. (Other than that, he states there will be no interaction between the Linden dollar and the WIC, which makes me wonder how this benefits any companies selling shares in the future, given that they'll be raising WICs, which will be useless to them inworld. How is that going to work?)

He's taking Linden dollars, which he can sell for US$, and writing it off against his 'fictional' currency. Making it go bye bye. On top of a whole lot of Linden dollars already 'invested' in the WSE.

There's a lot of talk on the video about a huge growth in non-SL users of WSE when it's relaunched . What doesn't make sense, is how the stock exchange will grow, now that it's a "game", given that's it's based on SL companies, which previously used the WSE to raise funds to finance their businesses - in the future, how will they do that? With his make believe WICs? WICs won't buy islands, pay tiers, in any way function as a means for companies to run and grow their businesses. The core economic activity that his "game" and any growth is based on, will be broken. What exactly would participants be speculating on?

The thing that separates this from Ginko: the guy is on video, telling you exactly how he's going to make your money go away.

Seems to me that this guy is taking a page from LL's playbook. He is providing a fictional currency that is supported by $ and $L. He is providing a "game" or "platforum" to create income, but the currency he provides is not real currency. This really is no different than what LL does. It might not be a simulator or even a intense software app like SL, but in reality he is really doing the samething LL is doing. You can buy and sell fictional or real businesses on his exchange using the WIC currency. You can even create income using his platform, but when you get screwed by said platform and people using it, there is no real legal action you can take against him because the currency isn't real. This is exactly what LL does.

He most definitely is taking notes from LL. The difference is however, that Linden dollars perform a function, they are accepted as a medium of exchange inworld, and they have a market for those Linden dollars based on that functionality.

What functionality do WICs have that will create a market for them?

edit: no one is going to sell their SL business for WICs.

Brava! *snap snap snap* Wewtie wewt!

I'm guessing WICs would the currency of the exchange correct? So that is pretty much the same thing. You use WICs to play his "game". Sure at the moment he is using SL to be a platform to launch his "game", but I'm thinking he has ideas of expanding this exchange outside of SL. This is probably the reason he plans to move out using L$. How popular or not it will be is a different matter. If you wish to play his market you will have to accept usage of WICs as the exchange within his platform, whether your using to fund your SL account, WoW account or whatever. That's just my take on it. By calling the currency fictional, and the platform a game, he really is doing exactly what LL is doing. If LL decided to stop working today, there would be millions in loses for everyone and since it's just "game tokens" there is nothing you really can do to get your money back. You accepted the ToS to play the "game". I'm just playing devil's advocate here, I by no means actually support this.

It is a page out of LL's book, but I trust LL far more than this guy. It smacks of Ginko-style theft, especially when there is no way to exchange the WICs for real money. At least at this time. With LL, you know how to cash out.

Well trust is a different thing altogether really. I wouldn't really consider this the same as Ginko though. With ginko you were just giving money away. You had nothing to show for it. I guess in some sense you will have a WIC balance, stock portfolio and the means to invest WIC in what you wish. With Ginko you just hoped you got your money back with the interest. Not exactly the same thing. I know the WSE had some dealings with Ginko which pretty much kills their appeal in SL, however opening to new platforms that have some kind of chance of gaining income from a game could work. That's really what I think he is trying to do. Sure people in SL do remember Ginko, but not everyone was using SL at the time, nor even know about SL. Personally I don't think it's a completely flawed idea, if he can actually make it work in terms of being somewhat trustworthy and being able to actually provide the payouts. Would I invest in it? No. But many people will.

Unless the WICs exchange near their defined value this is all moot.

If you had $40000L in stocks on day 1

Which were worth $100 US

And they suddenly become $40,000 WIC bucks

which you can only get $10 US for ...then its the same thing as ginko.

Everything really hinges on how he defines conversion of WICs to USD.

That might work, except the core of his game is SL companies. That's what participants in his game are speculating on. He makes no mention in his video of any expansion in listings by entities outside of SL. He believes his growth in investors will come from non-SL users, but that's just one side of the game. Where will future listings come from? If it's from SL, other than the dividends he receives from SL CEOs, he has stated that there will be no relationship between the Linden dollar and the WICs. What benefit would there be for an SL company to list? To generate funds in the form of WICs? That they can't use inworld, with doubtful liquidity? That makes no sense. Even assuming there's a nice healthy market for them, from an SL business point of view, it's pretty inefficient compared to financing your business with Lindens, given they're built into the system and you can convert, pay tier, and withdraw all from your SL account.

So, if not SL, where will these fictional companies and this growth come from? Seems to me, as a game, it's broken.

How is L$ regulated? It's decided by LL right? It's no different. One day they could say your LL is worth $1. You hold the same risks here. I'm interested myself on how WSE plans to prove to people that their money wasn't just lost into thin air. This whole episode is actually very interesting to me because of what it means for internet worlds such as SL. Because the same risks apply here. There is no real regulators for L$, it's decided by LL. The issue is so much money was already invested in WSE before they came out with this new system. If say this guy changed his name, started a new market with this system, there probably would have been less speculation.

Really good points. He does use SL as his main source at the moment. But can you say new markets and platforms won't appear? They will. If his method works or not, I dunno, but it's not entirely a failed attempt yet. Only time will really tell. It's a risky bet to make on an investors part. Exchanging money from $ to WIC to $ to $L. That's a lot of changing hands, but a lot of companies made a lot of money from fictional stocks, essentially something from nothing. So regardless of the transferring money and fees associated with that, it could still benefit some people. Just my take on it.

With the L$. You have a multi-million dollar company interested in its value.

The entire mainland uses L$ as a means to buy land, content creator upload fees are in L$

You additionally have hundreds of thousands of people interested in the Linden$ keeping its value.

You also have people provide actual labor based on the perceived value of the Linden.

And you have thou sands of retailers willing to sell their content for Linden$

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In the WSE case you have one guy who has shut down his stock exchange for 2 months who is holding people's Linden $ and saying he wont give them back, but instead will replace them with a currency he just made up.

Which is only supported by him.

A Lot depends on what those WICs are worth compared to the nominal value he gives them.

Pretty much like when Ginko offered you a "$100L" worth of stock that would only trade for $20L



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But much like you say if the Linden$ lost all its value overnight we'd be in the same boat. Its just that the L$ has a good chance of keeping the majority of its value over the next few months,

While the WIC doesnt.

Which is exactly why I wouldn't put my money it. But people probably will. Really interested in seeing the outcome of it all.