The King is Dead

This is my first post, unfortunately its not the post I thought I would be starting with.
But I feel it is in the best interest of the second life community and all "online worlds" investors.

A must see for investors: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1993624284569945666


Quick note: notice no law suit, no charges, no lawyers were involved in this matter (please correct me if I'm wrong)

I remember that video when it first came out, even though I didn't play and to this day haven't played EVE it still sent shockwaves around the tech community that someone would so blatantly defraud other players. I'm surprised more people didn't see this as a warning of things to come in SL.

I know of this incident but the video sound i could not understand a word lol but its the guy that ran of with a ton of eve currency

30,000,000,000 (30 billion) in EVE currency which translated to about $170,000

"Hi. I've been spending all the money you gave me, but your crazy panicking about me spending all your money means I can't give you any back. Have some sweet wrappers instead- they're worth 100L each! Cheerio!"

actually the ones who paid 100 L for a wrapper got screwed over, he (Nicholas) says now that the remaining funds will be converted at a 1:1 ratio so the bond would have a 1L face value though at least at current price it's worth a lot less than that.

Well, pretend you are personally running a crashing scam - what's the VERY best thing that could happen to you?

Yup, that's right... get banned from the game!

What's the SECOND best?

A big, big plausible fuss - say, tie in a major policy change (say, a gambling ban) to a 'panic' which makes a LOT of noise, thus providing an 'excuse'. Gee, lookie, it wasn't MEEEE!

Of course, if your best 'high risk' investments were virtual stocks anyway, even BEFORE the crash, what's the difference now?

The difference? Now you get your money on the 5th of Never, instead of the 1st!

maybe im just naive, but i believe nick tried his best to do right by everybody. he was met with much venom and scrutiny he was pretty much doomed though.
everyone here should know full well that if he had simply closed up shop and cashed out, LL would have done nothing to prevent that. but he didn't, instead he tried to find solutions. maybe he isnt a rl banker, but then again i doubt many of you are rl cobblers, builders, fashion designers, hair stylists, and so on. perhaps he started a little bank as a hobby, and experienced some initial success. its sad to see him demonised and drug through the mud, being characterised as a charlatan and a fraud. i dont think he deserves that treatment at all.

i wish nick all the best with his future endeavours, and i am confident he will still try to do right by his ginko customers. the same customers that must have reaped rewards in times past.

I hope you are

What is the point of a bank in Second Life when we all have a banking system anyway. It's not as though we keep a load of L$ 100 notes in a jam jar under the bed, is it?

stop going into my bedroom and looking around kthx ^^

Not waiting or caring about class action suits................

LL's either on purpose or threw ignorance allowed this to happen threw their platform via their own $ transfer systems. I'm no lawyer but I doubt it would be to hard for those who lost thousands to bring LL's to court.

End of the day the crime itself happened on property LL's owns , using software of their making , that is regulated by them.

First stages of grief , shock comes first. Those that lost bucket loads of RL money will stare dumbfounded at their screens for a few days. Then comes anger. They will start phoning lawyers and implicating LL's / Nick.

Least thats what I expect to see , what comes of that legal action ? nothing most likely.

I feel pity for anyone who got taken for a ride here , but not sympathy. Everyone basically knew it was a scam , greed or ignorance drove them to put to much in. A hard lesson for many on "if it's to good to be true , then it is".

I wish you all the best in any legal action you take. In a perfect world Nick would be hauled before court and thrown in jail for the rest of his life. In ours though a sad truth is that crime does indeed pay.

In summary...


We're bankrupt but because we're a SL company we can fudge is and continue trading. Whether they'll actually get anyone to invest in the future is a different matter.

What I don`t get is why people even put money into a fake bank.

I think the interest rate was pretty attractive but yeah, I agree with you.

it'd take 8 years.

but look on the bright side: by then LL might have redundant network connectivity.

Greed. Ginko promised huge returns, so people thought they'd invest and hope they could cash out before the money dried up. Evidently some did, and many were too late.

Broccoli

The rumour I heard was that Ginko was actually investing the money in casinos - and THAT's why they went belly-up once the casinos were all banned.

apparently, yes.

in the last 24 hours over 1 million bonds changed hands.

If I remember correctly when I used Ginko about a year ago, there was a nice fat warning about using it at your own risk because something (like this) could happen. I feel bad for all who have lost money, but I'm sure you've seen the warnings too..Maybe Ginko will bounce back from this. I'd try my best to relax and let my bonds grow. At least they didn't leave everyone with absolutely nothing right?

I haven't been following the story of this, all I know is what I just read, so maybe I'm missing something here, but his note seems legit..if a bunch of big money pulled out at once, it would be hard to stay above water. Why is everyone so mad, even though they were warned? I really am wondering.

Is anyone willing to stand up and say that they lost a ton of money? I had no money in Ginko but have been following this. Clearly some people had a ton of money in Ginko, but I'm interested to know as I've not seen anyone stand up and say, "Nick, you screwed me out of X Lindens."

It's not a big deal, it's just that I'm wondering if there were a few large investors or a ton of smaller investors that kept Ginko going this long.

my guess is both

but I doubt whether you'll get a large duped investor coming into the forum saying so when they could be 'working things out' with ginko directly.

i'm that no one picked up on this:

so, how is Ginko going to actively purchase these bonds when they have no assets? that's big time double talk and it really is the root to all of the other words scattered around it.... like so much fluff.