Time for e-Gold in Second Life

I think you people are missing a very key point here. Yes, for many people, especialy americans, paypal is far more convenient than e-gold. However, LL has scrapped the need to have a credit card to register as a user. That means it has opened it doors to the millions upon millions of people, many of them in the first world, that lack a credit card (or for that matter, a bank account). There are also millions of others that have such things, but are simply outside paypal's reach. For those people e-gold is the "currency" of choice. It is global, has no barriers to entry and yes, it IS cheap. 5% is one of the most expensive exchange fees charged (2% is an average, which is lower than paypal in some cases), but actualy moving money around costs practicaly nothing. In some contries (due to exchange controls making it hard to purchase e-gold), you actualy get paid a premium for selling it to a local exchanger.

E-gold has its flaws, no doubt about it. But it also serves a key segment of the global population and it does so very well. It is a fast growing market and I strongly support it being added to SL.

Linden Lab opened their doors to the masses but when it comes time to let them be members of SL's economy, it then says they are second-class citizens by limiting themselves to paypal and cumbersome checks (which can take more than a month to even reach many places). Those people can neither buy L$ nor cash them out. It's not a question of how expensive it is, they cannot do it under the current system.

E-bullion has certain benefits that e-gold does not. For example, it has 0% funding fees, 0% transfer fees. They also have dolar denominated balances, which means no fluctuation of balance values. It is also easy to exchange it for e-gold. I also support them being added.

GoldMoney is meant for gold-hoarders (and it serves that market pretty well). However, it's not a viable payment processor in my opinion.

The article is not very clear on this so I should point out that the reason e-gold is taking 5% of the transaction in this case is because of the minimum flat fee. The fee tops at about $1 I believe, so a $1,000,000 spend would incur a spend fee of about $1, not $50,000.

Gold Hoarders should just stockpile American Eagle Bullion Coins. Doesn't make sense if they are just going to hoard the metal... Guess they don't like driving coins to their safe deposit box.