Could Second Life also become an RL bank?

Via Raph Koster's blog I learned of an article today in Ars Technica that Project Entropia has been granted preliminary approval to become a real-world bank, with deposit insurance, interest-bearing accounts, etc : http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/03/real-banking-coming-to-virtual-worlds.ars:


I have often wondered if Second Life would go that route, and I'm mildly surprised another virtual world got there first. I'm not sure at this point how much trust I'd have in Second Life as a real-world financial institution, since stability and bug fixing are clearly second-tier priorities for Linden Lab, but SL does have a very strong and active economy...

Do you think LL/SL will ever try to become a bank?

Considering how messed up our banking system is right now, why not? LL would fit right in.

Good way for LL to get a bailout.

How much of a bonus would Phil and M and M get? And would Congress make believe they didn't know those were happening as well?

I don't know about the first part, but I do believe the second part is a near certainty.

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I would very much like to earn interest on my money in-world. That might actually convince me to leave it alone longer, rather than cash out every time it reaches a large enough amount that I worry about it disappearing due to some random hardware/network/administration glitch.

But since it's been quite clearly demonstrated that fixing bugs will always take back seat to adding new features, I have a feeling it would take quite a while for me to gain enough confidence to leave more than a few thousand in-world for any significant length of time.


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Lol.

In case you're serious, nope. Not even remotely interested.

How else can they get on TV if they don't feign indignant outrage.

I'd like to see more doing the Perp Walk myself.

I suspect that's probably true of most people that don't do a lot of in-world business, and maybe a lot that do, but I can see some benefits to it if they ever did, so I actually was serious

I never had even the slightest amount of interest in the resident-run so-called 'banks' in SL, but I might feel differently about LL giving me interest on my $L balance.

With LL's strong stance that $L are essentially play money, I guess I can't see that ever happening, but it's still an interesting thought.


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You and me both. There's certainly enough corruption in Washington to make a Judge Brenda show, could put one in jail per day and get fantastic ratings


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Lately we have been, in a way. For example the $L exchange rate has been moving at about $L 1 a month.

So consider $L 1 million at roughly $L 262 at the beginning of this year:

$L (1,000,000 / 262)/1.035 = 3687.72 USD

Let's pretend it drops to $L 250 by next year (it may not):

$L (1,000,000 / 250)/1.035 = 3864.73 USD

3864.73/3687.72 = 1.048 or roughly 4.8% return. Wow!


But... there are some caveats to this.

First, you can't take out money you paid $L for. Yep, serious! Only that $L that you have 'earned' legitimately inworld. Why? It defeats money laundering and using our service provider as a financial patsy (it would be bad for the rest of us if people did that). Some of you might accomplish withdrawing purchased $L, maybe it's possible, but perhaps only if you've paid about as much in as tier or something.

Second, consider it costs 3.5% to cash out. So you are really seeing 4.8 - 3.5 = 1.3% increase if you could manage to put your own money in and take it out.

Third, this trend cannot continue forever, and may not even last the year. Consider the future, changing from say $L 100 to $L 88 as an $L 1 per USD exchange rate drift over 12 months.

$L 1,000,000 at $L 100, 3.5% fees: 9650.00 USD
$L 1,000,000 at $L 88, 3.5% fees: 10965.90 USD

% change: 13.6% per year! Not gonna happen.

My guess is that the 1.3% we currently see is smaller than the amount of $L simply thrown away or forgotten with abandoned accounts.

Oh no. There would be no jail for these criminals.....

I think Brenda's punishment would involve them pulling their pants down while she gets handy with a good pair of pruning shears.

you are cruel beyond all reason, and people say I'm evil.

Too Jewish.

Not bad, though.

Let the punishment fit the crime.

In that case, they need to all bend over and drop the pants - I'll call in all the noobs with their extra huge attachments.

Good thing spike got help early on.

Fixed it for ya!

Pep (A bit like the Pimp Roll?)

This, of course, is a clever trap bought to you by the IRS. Pay you pennies in interest for your virtual pennies - then tax you to the grave. Your avatar will be on IRS Island making payment arrangements.

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