The Gold Lindon Dollar

Yes, they do. That is where I play from.
This post cost me 3 smokes and a breakfast. Fortunately I am good at Spades.

Hey Schwans, say hi to Andy Dufrane for us, k?

Same reason we use L$ in SL.

To the posters who commented they like US dollars, thats fine, it is the worlds reserve currency and exchangable anywhere, especially American Express Travel Checks.

But using real US dollars in sl would cause issues with gambling

The problem with the lindon is deemed value......goodwill only and looking at the graphs that is going up in smoke

The only way a private company can issue virtual currency and have it hold value is to link it with a real asset in first life and stand by it legally, and gold really is the only answer as nearly all recorded history tells us.

And it would be the residents of sl who would organise it, not Lindon. So comments about Lindon Labs are just not relavent.

Solid gold is solid gold, and so is UK financial law. After all London and New York are the worlds financial centers, not Calafornia. In fact Calafornia is skint sorry to be blunt

Hey hey hey... don't knock my nation state.

Besides.. skint is a record label based in Brighton, England.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SKINT

Now I didn't say the london sock exchange.. but hey its kind of catchy!

Anyone have a pair of crew socks I can exchange 2 pairs of no shows for?

Cali is going in the drink... With San Francisco leading the way...

All world currencies, since the dawn of time, have fluctuated in value. Business men and governments have tried to thwart this fluctuation...and correct me if I'm wrong, but all have failed in the long run. Currency and economic forces will find a natural balance.

I think it is only a matter of time before virtual currency becomes available on the world future trading markets. Then, if you think the Linden is going will continue sinking, you will be able to short it and make money the lower it falls.

I think the solution is not an attempt at locking a value (which has historically failed) but having the currency freely traded against other currencies where normal market forces determine the true value.

The "Linden Dollar" on a forex market? I'm a bit of a "platform evangelist" myself, but I just have to grin at this one. It would become worthless overnight, as nobody would do anything with "a fictional element of game currency", other than short it until they could short no more. Who on earth would you sell it TO? Are SL residents going to show up on real forex brokerage sites and buy trillions of "Linden Dollars"? All 175,000 of us or whatever? What use would we have for them?

As an analogy, picture a thriving RL economy being the Pacific Ocean. The SL economy is a 10 gallon fish tank sitting on the shore. What is more likely to happen, in a matter of time, is that the "Linden Dollar" will be completely done away with, in favor of the USD.

Not big into the message boards, but this post peaked my interest.

I can't imagine that a gold-backed Lindon$ would ever be possible.

With enough capital I could start my own currency tomorrow here in the US, but who's going to use it? The answer to this "second currency" question is in the usability. It's less convenient, therefore it will not be universally adopted.

Inflation's going to exist, whether you like it or not. Bank interest rates in SL reflect inflation - I've heard that banks offer interest that calculates out to 300%/year. Tripling your money (not purchasing power) in RL would take about 15 years at 8%. Using these basic bank figures this means that the Linden dollar will double in value after about a year and a half... evidence that either the Linden is being held down or the banks are using ridiculous figures (personally I vote for the latter). But it still begs the question...

Or Ponzi Schemes to grab and run... Banks in SL are a joke until
LL creates an interface that allows for loans to be issued and collateral
to be put up in case of default. Currently, SL banks are nothing more
than middle men for real world inventments. Assuming they are legit..

SL Banks take your L$, sell it for US$, invest it into something
(ie: Money Market Account), and pay you interest or should I say
a portion of the profit they earn with your money. Always keeping
an eye on the L$/US$ exchange rate and adjusting their interest to
you.

But "Bank" isn't the correct term in SL. More like "Brokerage House".

Such an interface already exists. It is known as the land sales system. I do mortgages from time to time.

On the surface, one would think that the high cost of tier would be problematic. It actually isn't, though. This is tier that the borrower would be paying to LL anyhow, it simply proxies through the lender. Asset backed loans in SL aren't a good fit for everyone, but it's not impossible to make them work on agreeable terms.

I'm suprised that the banks aren't doing this as well. Taking L$ investments in order to invest outside of the economy (unless there's direct BENEFIT to the economy resulting) does seem a bit sketchy.

Yes, but it comes down to the fact that I cannot take my Lindens down to Tesco (or Walmart/Asda) to directly spend, UNLESS the goodwill of other Linden people allows me to do so.

On the other hand Ebay is very succcessful as it also trades with real dollars/pounds/etc.

So sl is in what I believe to be an economic cul-de-sac without a real currency of some kind. At least a gold based linden would hold its value (subject to real gold prices)

Real US dollars are an alternative but I believe there would be issues to solve first

I love when they spell it with a letter "o."