Second Life needs stable currency

Yes, it certainly would be stepped and grow as demand grow.

hhehehehe.. A Rope.. You are a comedian..

Oh I thought Nerd$ too, I just didn't wanna say it

Only a fool would buy my foo$. You aren't the only one who can do an exchange anshe. Why dont we all just split into different SL countries and all have our own currencies and overthrow the LL government? Thats what anshe is doing with dreamland....

Because we don't have enough money to do that

I'll try the joke again as it seemed to have been overlooked.

"Whogivesabuck"

Thankyou.

Lewis

I think a new currency could be a interesting initiative to watch, we could learn things about virtual economies and such. Also, I would love having more information on the finances and economy of SL. But I have a few points on this:

- Change to a more stable and controlled currency. I understand people wanting that move. But for that, we have the USD, the euro, the yen… why go to yet another virtual currency, with a smaller user base and less places to use it even than the Linden Dollar? 90% of the users never read the forums, or the SL newspapers, they just use a piece of software made by Linden Labs… It’s going to be tough to convince the population to change their L$ to Anshe$, and use yet more HUDs and webpages to see and trade Anshe$... Now, if Anshe Studios Ltd. could convince Linden Labs to support also the Anshe$ in their software and webpages, that would be a good help

-A SL currency controlled by a company in SL? I see a conflict of interests here. I don’t think Anshe Studios Ltd. will manipulate the market to their interest, but I can't be sure they wouldn’t, either.

-Just curious: I’m european, but we don't usually talk about "silver euro"… what is the silver euro mentioned as a "backup"? The decorative euros that are sometimes issued in silver, mainly to collectors? Silver (or silver futures) to the value of an euro? Another way of referring to good old euros?

-When I see this thread on the forums, my browser cuts the title to “Second Life needs stab”. I don’t think that’s a good omen

Anyway, it would be an interesting initiative; good luck to everyone involved

In the real world and when it comes to money like Lindens or the maybe Anshe money - there are a situation that I hope LL will take in and really consider...

In the 1990 is.. a man with the name Soros speculated in smaller countries currents... (plus stocks and al other kindof papers...)

Mr Sorors speculated in for example Swedish kronor.. and he had as much strenght to do it that the Swedish Government had huge problems under some weks, some days...


Sweden are a small country with its own currency.. (still).... SL are a small country as well... or?

The Swedish economy and the peoples economy was close to colaps..

What I know there are no countries that accept other currency than the government one...


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

*****

About: Soros

"Soros [sc´rcs], George, f. 1930, ungersk-amerikansk fondförvaltare. S. blev
i början av 1990-talet känd för att göra så stora valutaspekulationer att de
ibland kom att påverka kursutvecklingen. Den största fonden som hans företag
förvaltar, Quantum Fond (startad 1969), har haft extremt god avkastning. S.
har visat stort intresse för utvecklingen i Östeuropa efter kommunismens
fall och aktivt stött kultur och utbildning. S. har även utgivit skrifter
inom det finansiella området, bl.a. The Alchemy of Finance (1987)."

It would be interesting to hear an official Linden reaction to this suggestion. Presumably Vasudha the expert should have plenty of information on the subject.

However, my guess is that the usual silence will ensue.

Lewis

But an exchange will be where it's value will be ultimately determined.
And L$ are currency from nothing.

Sounds like fun. If it takes off and works this way it would be a good currency for speculation with limited risk as it has a 100% backing scheme. What are the options to step out of the system? Given you offer to trade back to US$, EUR and GBP in a timely fashion you'd need to do it yourself. Will that be based on base rate (forcing people to go on the exchange if they want a better deal) or would you offer a similar (but slightly lower) rate compared to the exchange market?

To be honest, while this could potentially work I think there are quite a few traps in there. It'll be a bit hard to sustain the system without proper precautions. On the other hand if you do it wisely you could make quite a bit of money out of it as you've the possibility to reintroduce A$ at better rates than you have bought them.

I can hear the howling cries of FIC already!

Seriously though, if anyone's going to introduce a new currency infrastructure why not just make it US$ (or Euros) directly and be done with it? You don't even need to back that, since those currencies are already backed by their countries.. just get a holding bank account and sufficient trust, and no problem.

Yes, coin of pure silver usually denominate with 10 EUR each.

I agree with you on the idea of just making L$ actual US$ and only playing with real money, but then 90% of the casinos in SL would have to close because it become real online gambling if people play with RL money. Casino owners now are safe because people are gambling in a game with virtual currency, and not directly paying US$ to gamble. Its the loophole.

Mmm... so, if you were casino gambling with A$, you'd effectively be buying and selling shares in the 100,000EUR Anshe's got in a bank vault somewhere (since that's how a backed currency would work) - would that break the loophole, too?

soon or later secondlife will have to run on one of that law-free islands(which online casinos use, tax-free,gambling-free islands).

The A$ will have financial backing (contrary to L$). The backing means that if you go with your A$ to Anshe that she can then guarantee it gets bought back at a predetermined rate. Hence unlike the L$ this would remove the A$ from the economy and would require Anshe to reintroduce those A$. If Anshe decides to increase the backing she can change the total volume and put the new A$ on the market. Off course this will adjust the value. Total control of the real value of the A$ is held by Anshe.

For example let's say all "printed" money is in circulation and demand is very high. People are willing to go for 80A$ per 1EUR even though it's only guaranteed that you get 1EUR per 100A$. If at that time Anshe decides that the total volume is too low to sustain the market Anshe can introduce money at any rate between 80A$ for 1EUR and 100A$ for 1EUR as Anshe only needs to guarantee payback of 1EUR per 100A$.

Note that it works the other way around too. Anshe could keep all the A$ that get traded in for real money untill demand on the exchange is high. Then Anshe can reintroduce the A$ and make a nice profit. (Note that this is not limited to Anshe, anybody could do this actually but likely only Anshe will trade in enough A$ to make it happen)

If you compare this with LL:
LL does increase the L$ total volume (stipends) and decrease the L$ total volume (sinks) but as they have no procedures in place to buy back or create arbitrary L$ the L$ value is mostly determined on the Lindex.

As odd as it may sound, the L$ rate is more determined by an exchange than the A$ will be.

Anshe, this is the first time I've agreed with you on an issue.

We DO NEED a stable currency. Bravo.

I just noticed the lindex is on 305 right now.
Does your plan go in effect immediatly or are you going to wait on what it will be on the end of the day?

I for one would not now, over ever, be interested in the Anshe$ as a form of currency.

To me, the funniest thing about this proposal is that preventing the development of "wildcat banks" and "currency fragmentation" was one of the reasons Philip gave to us for wanting to nationalize currency exchange. d'oh.

Anshe I do have a question if I may

How does the vendor integration of this work. Specifically

Will merchants have to buy your vendors? (considering the investment I and my family have in existing systems I cringe a bit at this)

Or must we hope our vendor manufacturers install a conversion system?

Or do you have something else set up?

For many these may seem trivial questions for us I assure you they are not.

TY
Dark

We don't plan charge for vendors. The technical detail you would have to ask Guni. I think it is some kinda plug-in script though that would run in parallel to whatever normal vendor script you use for your L$ based transaction.

Well, the thing is this. If A$ are convertible to L$, then the value of A$ will have to fluctuate with the L$.

So as long as L$ is the base currency in SL, no SL currency can be more stable than the L$.

If Anshe means that she will sell you the currency via PayPal that you have to use to pay your rent, I understand that; but for other transactions, won't she have to keep raising the number of Linden dollars you have to pay to buy an Anshe dollar if she makes the Anshe dollar stable versus the Euro? And why would anyone pay more for Anshes when they can pay less for Lindens?

It just looks like another layer on the onion to me.

That bit is easy.

What's not easy is: How do I get to you if - thanks to the somewhat flakey nature of interprim communication - transaction data is lost? Transactions repeated?

How do you intend to handle disputes and claims if a person's records don't match yours?

What recource do I have if you decide SL isn't your bag anymore and turn off your system?