Second Life and Virtual Worlds
A lot was written a few weeks ago about the instability in the Second Life™ Lindex. Darrius Gothly wrote: The Math Behind the LindeX. It has enough misconceptions I am moved to provide a counter point and more accurate information.
I’m moved to do it at this time because of a recent post in the forum. Some one thought selling L$ at L$265/US$1 on July 29 was setting the price to high… high!?! No that is pretty low, for a seller.
There is more and more being said about the Lindex and the current trend in exchange rates. I was curious about trend so I’ve been graphing it.
The raw data comes from Linden Lab. Tyche Shepard collects that information and has since 2009. (See: GridSurvey) The Lab publishes the raw numbers for the last 30 days and charts it for that last 90 days. My chart is a combination of both. The last 5 days have not shown up at Tech’s. The last few days are the most interesting.
When it comes to currency exchange Americans tend to be ignorant of how it works. Europeans that travel are much more knowledgeable, at least in my experience. That knowledge difference seems to have led to some conspiracy theories about the recent price of Linden dollars.
The image is the list of pending buy and sell orders placed in the Lindex market as of 9AM PT 5/24.
This Sunday morning I am going reading blogs and forums to see what is going on in Second Life. The interesting things I am finding follow:
Honour has images of Alice is Wonderland [SIC]. See: SL10BCC, Jumping Down the Rabbit Hole in Second Life. It is a region that is as strange and odd as the original story conveys and Honour does a good job of capturing that in her photos.
Maria Korolov on Hypergrid Business post more about the ongoing saga of the L$ Exchanges. See: Linden Lab allows third-party currency sales. Maria sees this as the Lab reversing their position. I don’t.
All exchanges MUST buy their Lindens from the LindeX. People can then buy those L$ from the Exchanges. But, in reality these will no longer be ‘exchanges’ as no one will be able to take money out of SL EXCEPT through the LindeX.
So, the exchanges are now only retailers of L$. It looks like many people will still have a significant problem getting money out of SL. This is of course the whole point of FinCEN regulations.
There is a question and discussion in the SL Forum about: Any solution for cashing out in Euro with LindeX?
There is a new post on the Second Life™ blog announcing: More Options for Buying Linden Dollars.
Quoting:
With a credit card, you can purchase L$ on the LindeX using 27 different currencies, including EUR, GBP, JPY, and AUD. If you don’t have a credit card, you can also use PayPal, which can be connected directly to a bank account in more than 193 countries and regions.
OK… most of us know that. Then they go to say:
Now, to give users more options and make it easier to purchase L$, we’re launching a pilot program of Authorized Resellers of L$. These sites are authorized by Linden Lab to purchase L$ on the LindeX and then resell those L$ using a variety of international currencies and payment methods. To be clear: per the Terms of Service, these resellers will not be allowed to purchase L$ outside of the LindeX (i.e. they will not be able to buy L$ back from users and cash people out). The list of Authorized Resellers participating in the pilot program is available here.
They also acknowledge there is a problem with cash out time via the LindeX saying:
We know that users are also concerned about the length of the LindeX’s cashout process and the limited choice of currencies when selling L$. We’re currently investigating ways to improve that experience for users while still providing superior fraud protections, and hope to hasten the cash out process and offer new currency options in the future.
So, something is at least in the works. I expect to hear more as the day wears on.
There is still a huge amount of speculation going on in regard to the ToS change and the Lab’s issuing Cease and Desist emails to those operating L$ exchanges and building viewers that link to third party exchanges.
In one thread over on SLUniverse the participants are trying to figure out why third party exchanges are suddenly illegal. They aren’t illegal. But, they do violate the Lab’s ToS… may be. That is where the confusion is, the ToS.