WSE - Current Status

One thing some may not know is Anshe was at one time trying to establish a currency, things got pretty heated there for awhile not even sure what the final was, but never saw any Dreamy dollars.

As a professional finance guy I wouldn't touch any currency in sl other than a Linden, unless Lindens specifically says it backs that currency.

Though some virtual world situations have shown up in court got to be clear case contractual aggreements to work from. Assets have very little protection in SL. investment scheme's; not much recourse if someone runs with the investments. Regulatory committees could have so many holes, its unbelievable that any would risk their coin.

While at my brokerage a managing partner explained fear & greed as the two motivating factors to human behvior, I had said pain/pleasure either way, greed can mess up even a principled pixel
be careful out there toons, toons ,toons everywhere

Bingo

I reckon we should have prim money, No mod/no copy Lindens made by a Linden, worth 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100 etc Linden denominations

sad to admit it...don't quite know how i came to know alot of the bankers who had holdings in the WSE but a LARGE majority of them gambled..heavily ...daily...and the numbers they bragged to me that they were exchanging at the end of every week((winnings)) was sick.

~Lana

LOL bank owners gambling ..

Isn't thats just inherently shady?

Also a pretty good metaphor for real life...

I can just see how it might have gone down

Banker 1- I got 10,000$ in deposits tonight, I'm hitting VEGAS babee!

Banker 2 - Well yeah they knew it was a "High risk" investment anyhow! I think I am going to learn how to play Blackjack tonight.

Banker 1 - Good Luck, but don't worry bout it if you lose , not like its your money!

Banker 2 - Yep! Damn being a Banker in SL is awesome.

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Although My guess is that most of the Banks invested in the business side of the Casinos, since thats where the real money is.

It's probably even more pathetic than that. They probably thought they would win.

Actually, she was going to have an "Anshe Dollar" which was going to be backed by solid real gold. The actual vehicle to be used was based on the E-Gold collective. I suggested that a more effective collective would be GBS (epic gbs quoted in London) an exchange traded fund, as it is priced in US dollars and highly liquid.

With correct accounting together with honestly, that would have worked. Knowing Anshe as I did then she would have pulled it off, however Linden Labs pressured her into dropping the idea.

In retrospect a bad idea it was dropped...especially as you Americans cannot hold physical gold, as I understand legislation there

GLD (an ETF) is how we trade it.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=gld

That might have been true at one time but as I know currently we Americans can own whatever gold we want too.
Yet there was period of time where all Americans were required to give their gold to the country during the depression years and couldn't own any large quantities of it for numerous years.

This is how I understand it also.

It was part of the plan to get us out of the Depression. Desperate times called for desperate measures, etc.

I still don't understand why that Depression-era gold seizure was a good idea for the country. In today's recession, gold (and other commodities) is about the only thing going up in value!

Thanks for that info re gold in the last few posts all.

BTW if anyone wants live streaming data try this link

http://www.advfn.com

Back when the dollar's value was tied to the amount of gold we had, that would make sense. These days, since the dollar is no longer dependent on gold for its value, why should gold ownership be restricted?

If you look carefully at what you just said the answer is contained within.

No one was doing any Investing.

Companies weren't hiring, etc.

People were hoarding and trying to wait the depression out.

Yeah this would be to funny once again if it wasn't so sad uh? I saw it coming when Mr. WSE announced that the WSE would be closed for a "few weeks" to do the "WSE 4.0" update to fix some bad bugs and give the site and hope capital a new look. I kinda wanted to get my funds out and place some sales orders but when I logged in trading was already halted and the ATM's disabled. The the WSE announced that during the trading halt they would pay 25% interest on all balances... only to cancel that a few days later due to the LL ban on banks and anything that pays interest... now... it's been a good 2 months for the "WSE 4.0" update and the site is still shut down / trading halted whitch does not mean that Mr. WSE can't de-list stocks during that time. Aint that great, you can't trade them but he can de-list them...

Anyway, same as many others I checked the site every day in the last 2 months to see if there was any word from Mr. WSE about the site update... I guess someone must have told him I was looking cause now he released his video with his funky WSE tie.. yes Luke (uhm did I say his name?) we like your tie as well, looks great...

I had to laugh when I heard all his talk again about "L$ was a fictional currency, a game token without any real value and how one only buys a limited user license when buying L$ to use this game token in the virtual world of second life. And how you pass on a peace of your limited user license every time you pay someone in SL or make a deposit".

So basically he is saying: "you gave it to me and now I can do what I want with YOUR money"

Then he gets into his dicks... eh WIC's talk and how this virtual currency is so much better than the L$ and how you be able to buy a limited user license for his WIC.. .don't you love that "world internet currency" lol, can I pay my ebay stuff with it? will paypal gimme a exchange rate to $ for WIC's? Can I pay you with WIC's?

Well, sure as hell I don't want them since I invested L$ into SL companies that have a presence in SL and not into WICY companies that have a fictional presence on the WSE site...

end of the story.. kiss your L$ goodbye ya all and maybe one day LL will have a dream.. that one day they will actually get into the middle of crap like this and scrap their policy about how they do not engage in resident affairs....

I'd say freeze all WSE assets until this is cleared and the people who want their L$ balances from the WSE are given the chance to withdraw.. ---> anyone seen this? http://www.petitiononline.com/sl01/petition.html

The TOS wont hold up in court cause they have been changed without notice or any selection during login that gave you a option to approve / decline them.

You've overlooked the third great motivator: inertia. Or as they are otherwise known: 'want', 'don't want', and, 'meh'

Yeah I wrote my stocks and balance off already anyway since I talked to Luke. Shame is ( as mentioned before) there was some good companies on there with very good intentions and it is a shame for them as well. Same for the other exchanges that are (still) around. I can't see many more people listing for IPO or putting large sums in $ or L$ into any of them cause there has just been to much ginkomania in the last 6-9 months.

However, a while ago I read a letter on the WSE from Anshe (cause people mentioned her here) she actually invested a lot of money in start-up companies in SL and also into the WSE and said she was playing with the idea to launch something similar as well... let me look...

... here it is...

https://www.wselive.com/news/show/10
though it also seems like this never kicked off...

Luke also said all funds have been converted to WIC afaik.. well I still have a L$ balance and stocks in L$ in my portfolio.. so that's mine cause it says so on his site.. I'd like to have it LOL... yeah I know... no way Jose...

and and....(lol this is kinda heating me up and I hate to write a lot...

He said the WSE 4.0 update takes longer than expected cause the coder (1 man it seems) has RL stuff to take care off..LOL to funny Luke. Get a RL real coder and pay him to do your site update. I did community site hosting for loads of games myself and I used to run the number 1 non-military community site for the serious games market simulator VBS2 (vbs2.com). And hey, no damn update takes over 2 months...

I ws using "dreamy dollars" as a reference to the concept not really naming her currency (artistic liscense , if you will).

I at one time was heavily involved in several online gold backed investments, e-gold was one of many that we dealt with but was dropped because of difficulties, int-gold went that way with a host of others. E-Bullion did better.

Over 6 figures de-pixelated, recourse none.

Paper, rofl , digital ouch, sl currencies uh-huh, still I am in good standing with the SEC and former member, also with NASD, all honest dealings you know .

In SL, Lindens only way to go and very good reasons for them to keep it that way, a fantasy currency may grow value in the context of the toon, and toons may exchange as if. However, if the flow garners the attention of bean-counters of the federal type pop -goes-the-weasel, ask the Casino owners. Still a firewall of sorts, until.

This doesn't even address taking lindens out of circulation and what implications that has.

Just a toon's opinion,

It is indeed a mess, Desmond

I put a teeny bit of money into people I considered to have integrity - such as SNE. I did so because I thought I was investing directly into their businesses, as a proxy for what i would like to do in SL if I had the talent myself.

Now I'm left feeling that all I've done is to help some dodgy ozzy kid with bad taste in ties. I would still like to invest in integrity and talent, but how to do that when the brokers seem to be shallow and lacking talent? I guess in future I just won't bother, which is a shame.

Surty..

On top of everything Lindens are the medium of exchange the User Interface is designed to deal with.

Why should Residents of SL have to play games with what currency they use. If this Financial Service is a Legit SL Service it should be up to them to make "virtual investing" seamless.

In America gold is for plating on plumbing fixtures, molding into tooth decor or wearing excessive quantities fashioned into jewelry. We have our priorities here, and they are to be as tacky and ostentatious as possible.

Then you have not yet seen what are called "The WAGs" in the London nightclub scene love......wistful sigh, wish I could bag a WAG without the wife finding out.

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Ray you are right, all the time the authorities think that in game currency for virtual worlds is just a game enabler then its okay. The moment you start introducing legal concepts you open a big can of worms. Linden dollars are already on the borderline as the TOS enable them to be sold for real US (unlike Gold in WoW etc)

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For what it is worth folks, I too think this is not right, although I opened this debate because my lack of skills in virtual reality led me to question the whole concept rather than dismiss it out of hand.

Putting it simply in financial terms, your Linden dollars (US convertible) have been transformed into WICs which may well have no fungible value. On the other hand, the WSE's Linden dollars may now well be US dollars. Read into that what you may but if it were I, I would now be complaining