Bank Run in Second Life

Jamie found an interesting bit about a bank run in Second Life. The recent ban on gambling combined with a $12k theft from the 2L stock market has caused people to try to get their money back. The article mentions that this could supposedly affect 8.5M players even tho most estimates of actual hard core players in the system are in the 5 to low 6 figure range.

Comments

Looking for a decent exchange rate

[pegr]

I'd be alright if I could get a decent exchange rate for all these Simolions...

Re:Looking for a decent exchange rate

[utopianfiat]

I'd be alright if I could get a decent exchange rate for all these US Dollars...

FIXED.

Re:Looking for a decent exchange rate

[Psion]

This is a real problem. Plenty of vendors sell the unauthorized work of others. In the case of one "artist", I found images just last night that I recognized from another, real world source, signed on each image by the vendor; the clearest example of IP "theft" I can think of, and certainly a lot more flagrant than any music sharing that pisses off RIAA so much. But I don't think it's that big of an issue. This kind of copyright infringement is rampant throughout the Internet. Look at the content of YouTube, for example. And at the same time this is going on, there are genuine, original artists to be found both in Second Life, and YouTube. To some extent, I see this as an example of the marginal value of both venues for creative expression. There aren't enough people in either environment for plagiarists to be recognized for what they are yet. Additionally, there's a tolerance on the internet for copyright infringement ... in part because organizations like RIAA and MPAA have made pests of themselves and created a "fuck you" attitude towards IP, and also in part because people in general tend to be lazy and inconsiderate of the work of others.

Re:Looking for a decent exchange rate

[RubberDogBone]

The fundamental flaw with gold is that it's only actually valuable because people desire it and it's relatively rare at the same time.

Flaw? Gold is not THAT rare. Major countries sit on huge stockpiles of gold and literal gold mines. If they so chose, they could release massive quantities of gold into the market which would instantly deflate the value of everybody's holdings and crash the economy of any country stuck on the gold standard.

Russia, for example, could dump some of their holdings. This would possibly halve the price of gold, instantly. What, then, would that do to the US economy if it was tied to gold? Chaos. Imagine waking up to find that your investment has lost half its value and you can't even sell it.

Even now, private investors see gold as the miracle investment but it still suffers from the same weakness. A Russia or China or someone else could instantly make that miracle investment into miracle whip.

You don't want to give other countries that kind of power to destroy your financial structure. You don't want to be tied to something you cannot control or worse is controlled by people who oppose you and won't hesitate to undermine what you want.

2L?

[mwvdlee]

What is this "2L" thing? It's not Second Life, because the whole friggin' world abbreviates that to "SL" and nobody is pedantic enough to come up with a totally new abbreviation when a perfectly good one already exists. So what does it mean?

Re:2L?

[UbuntuDupe]

Yeah, kinda like how no one would ever say "price point" in cases where "price" would convey the same information. ("Sony's failing because they make the PS3's price point too high.") And when challenged on why they felt the need to say "price point", they would never go on a long, condescending diatribe about the economic theory of "price points", dodging the matter of why it was necessary to say it in *that instance*. And they would never feel smug and superior for doing so.

Re:2L?

[karnal]

I'm guessing it's somewhere between "L" and "XL".

Vast exaggeration

[DaleGlass]

Ginko is a resident run bank, which has nothing really special about it. You can it on their own a href="https://ginkofinancial.com/">website: They only claim to have 18,875 accounts, quite a few of which probably were created as a test. Nowhere near the 8.5 million claimed.

Ginko's problem was their insane interest rates, which IIRC varied somewhere between 100% and 30% per year. I think it was 70% for a quite long time. People accused it of being a Ponzi scheme, which given that enormous interest sounds likely. That's why I never put a cent in it :-)

Re:Vast exaggeration

[mwvdlee]

Ginko also isn't a "bank" in the usual term of the word; it's not regulated or insured in any way and isn't impacted by any of the legal requirements of real world financial institutions. Quite frankly; you're an idiot if you trust them with your money.

Re:Vast exaggeration

[morgan_greywolf]

No, no. What they're saying is that banks like this (not just Ginko, there are others like it) will have an effect on the economy of the game. Think about it. If there were real banks doing this what effect would it have on the economy? Think 1930s America, because that's almost exactly what happened.

The most interesting part of the article to me, though was this tidbit:

Because the Linden dollar has no commodity backing, he says, the Second Life economy is in danger of crashing when provoked by any sufficient shock.

Now, s/Linden dollar/U.S. dollar/ and s/Second Life/U.S./ and the sentence would still be correct. Go ahead, try it. Read it again. Because the U.S. dollar has no commodity backing...

Re:Vast exaggeration

[eln]

Okay, but why would you invest your money in any bank in SL, even if they have reasonable rates? You can get around 5% interest these days in an online savings account, FDIC insured and backed by a real life regulated bank. If you want more, you can go for mutual funds or individual stocks, all of which are regulated. Sure, there's a risk you'll lose everything, but these things are at least regulated so you have some recourse in the unlikely event that your stock broker takes off to Aruba with your money. I would consider investing in a Second Life bank as riskier than putting your whole savings into junk bonds or giving it to some random person on a street corner to invest for you.

If you want to throw some cash in there as a gamble, just to see what happens, and losing that money would not really affect you in any way, then go for it. However, the article tries to suggest that an SL economy crash would seriously affect a lot of people, and I would say anyone who is going to lose their shirt over this was probably going to lose it eventually in some crazy money-making scheme anyway.

Re:Vast exaggeration

[UbuntuDupe]

Okay, I think I have some expertise on this, because I actually ran an SL "bank" (under a broad definition of "bank", but I called it a bank). I can tell you that 100% interest rate in SL is NOT "insane", and I can tell you how to "earn" that kind of interest without a Ponzi scheme.

First, some background: (as of '03 when I played) in SL, they make it so that they "recharge" your money to a certain level each week, sort of like welfare. The day of the week varies between people. So, if you store your money with a trusted party, it will look like you're poor and you'll get money despite not being poor. I believe at the time it was something like LD 7000 that they would recharge you to. My bank served the function of the trusted party: I'd hold their money (through a script) over their recharge day.

Oh, and yes, I was very open about this, and told admins I was doing it. They didn't care.

Now, this doesn't explain how exactly you'd employ someone's money to make more money (like the banks claimed). However, it shows how, using some tricks, you can start with e.g. LD 7000, and "earn" 7000 more each week ... that's definitely more than a 100% yearly effective interest rate!

Re:Vast exaggeration

[DaleGlass]

Well, let's look at the stats, then.

There are 18,875 accounts. Right now there are 34,822 people logged in (see http://secondlife.com/ ). In the last 60 days, 1,646,830 people logged in. So the total Ginko userbase is not all that great compared to the amount of people who use SL.

Next, it's quite reasonable to assume that a good portion of those 18,875 are by people who put there L$1 (USD $.00370) as a test, then forgot about it.

Now, they say their deposits are L$94,441,798 = USD $349,784. But, Ginko's claims about the amount of deposits were cast into doubt by several people, and that number seems to include interest, that is money they would be expected to give, but which none of the users actually put there.

Average amount of money per account is $349,784 / 18,875 = $18.53

Looking at the SL statistics:
US$ Spent Last 24h: $1,433,039
LindeX Activity Last 24h: $223,005

You can see that even the claimed amount of money isn't all that huge, and after years of operation at the enormous interest they claimed, most of that cash must be accumulated interest anyway.

While I bet some people will lose something quite significant, I don't think it's nearly as big as the article says.

Re:Vast exaggeration

[Colin Smith]

That's the whole reason US money is worth something, because the government guarantees they will accept it in payment of taxes. Um. Nope. The US dollar is worth something because it has a limited supply.

Money works in the same way as any other commodity. It's like coffee or oil. High demand and low supply increases the value of the currency compared to other commodities, everything appears to become cheaper (deflation). High supply of the currency or reduced demand for it reduces the value of the money with respect to other commodities and everything appears to get more expensive (inflation). You have inflation at the moment because the US government is paying for Iraq by printing (sorry, "borrowing") money.

Now that's been explained, go look up "fractional reserve banking" and "debt based monetary system" on wikipedia.

Re:Vast exaggeration

[Control Group]

Yes and no. That's a subset of the reason. The larger reason is that it's illegal in general to demand payment in some other form of currency in preference to the US dollar. That's what the phrase "this note is legal tender for all debts, public and private" means. It means that, if you're going to do business in the US, and if you're going to engage in a financial transaction, you may not refuse the US dollar as a currency to complete the transaction.

It is not legal to require payment in pounds sterling, gold bars, or years of indentured servitude.

Basically, the US dollar is worth anything because the government says it is...which is, ultimately, a function of the citizens of the US saying that it is. Which, ultimately, makes it no different than gold (except, of course, that the finite supply of gold is imposed by the universe, while the finite supply of dollars is imposed by the Fed).

Re:Vast exaggeration

[UbuntuDupe]

Um. Nope. The US dollar is worth something because it has a limited supply.

My snot has limited supply too, but it's not worth anything.

The GP was right for the question he was answering: why do the unbacked, limited-supply US dollars have value? Among other things, because you can pay taxes with them. I would add further, that so many debts are denominated in US dollars. This cascades into a sort of network effect: X people accept dollars, because they can pay debts with them, so MOST people accept dollars because they will be buying from someone, somehow connected to those X people.

And no, debt in and of it self is not morally objectionable. There's nothing wrong with businesses taking out loans for productive purposes for example. The reason a lot of economists like currency based this way is that you don't have to hold productive commodites (like gold, which can be used for hi-tech equipment) out of production, just so it can be used as money.

Your point about government inflating the currency is well-taken, but you're exaggerating its impact. As long as people know the approximate range by which it will expand the money supply, they will demand an interest rate on their lending that eliminates this effect. It's only the *ununsually excessive* expansions that can have distortionary effects, and people's expectations are pretty well adapted based on history.

Re:Vast exaggeration

[morgan_greywolf]

Right. But what would happen if the U.S. dollar no longer had sufficiently high demand? As in, the government printed too much or currency, or everyone said, 'fsck this, U.S. dollars aren't worth nothin' in my book!' Again, it's not backed by another commodity. It used to be backed by gold, but is no longer. BTW, Linden dollars are also of similar 'limited supply', even if they're only virtual. (If you disagree with this, remember that there isn't enough U.S. currency on the planet to cover all of the outstanding U.S. dollars, because that money, too, is virtual!)

Re:Vast exaggeration

[Control Group]

Um. Nope. The US dollar is worth something because it has a limited supply.

Only if the something in question has some objective value. I can print off a few hundred CGMUs (Control Group Monetary Units), making a very limited supply, but I don't imagine that would make them worth money to anyone else*.

Unlike the other commodities you mention, US dollars have no inherent utility. The "full faith and credit" of the US government determines their utility. Their scarcity determines their market value. You need both for a given good to be worth something.

*If I'm wrong about this, I invite you to invest in my CGMU-printing business.

Re:Vast exaggeration

[UbuntuDupe]

That's not quite right. Legal tender laws don't say "You must accept dollars while operating in the US." They just say, "If you declare that you accept 'US dollars' as payment, you must accept *these* notes." That is, you can't agree to accept dollars, and then not accept dollars. If you specify a contract that references gold, the law doesn't change that -- after all, how would contracts regarding gold mines operate?

"You are contractually obligated to dig one ton of gold from this mine."
"Hahah! Invalid! I just have to give you US dollars!"

The reason most US prices are quoted in dollars is because that's what most people deal in. You can still require "tokens" for arcades, chips at gambling tables, Jack Cash at Jack-in-the-Box, etc.

Re:Vast exaggeration

[Control Group]

The GP was right for the question he was answering: why do the unbacked, limited-supply US dollars have value? Among other things, because you can pay taxes with them. I would add further, that so many debts are denominated in US dollars. This cascades into a sort of network effect: X people accept dollars, because they can pay debts with them, so MOST people accept dollars because they will be buying from someone, somehow connected to those X people.

All of which boils down to the starting point, the the US government mandates that debts within the US can be settled by exchange of US dollars. This causes the cascade which you - accurately - describe. Which is why the worldwide value of the dollar is so closely related to the strength/productivity of the US economy, since that determines exactly what debts are mandatorily satisfiable with US dollars.

An interesting question to ponder is what might happen if the US government removed the legal requirement of accepting US currency to settle US debts, even if the government itself continued to accept it and pay its debts with it. On the one hand, the dollar is so well-established as a currency that it's tempting to suspect that it would go right on, much as it currently does. On the other, there would have to be a follow-on effect to such a vote of no confidence from the government which theoretically backs the value of the currency.

Re:Vast exaggeration

[Colin Smith]

My snot has limited supply too, but it's not worth anything. Your snot is just one among billions. There's a plentiful supply. Dollars have a value because the supply is limited, if there was an infinite supply, nobody including the government would accept them as a form of payment for anything, including taxes. Try printing them off yourself and see what happens.

The reason a lot of economists like currency based this way is that you don't have to hold productive commodites (like gold, which can be used for hi-tech equipment) out of production, just so it can be used as money. It doesn't have to be debt though. Look I agree debts can be useful, but there's no particular reason that money has to be based on it, or even on gold. Money is a valuable commodity of it's own, really that's how people think of it anyway. The only problem with unbacked currency is the government's propensity to roll the presses 24 hours per day, seven days per week, 52 weeks of the year.

e.g. http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?control=1595

but you're exaggerating its impact The fractional reserve system multiplies the impact, and... Really, take a look at the effect of exponentially increasing debt on the economy, society, on the environment. Look at who gets the cash and who gets the poverty.

As long as people know the approximate range by which it will expand the money supply, they will demand an interest rate on their lending that eliminates this effect. Fine if you're in a position to buy government bonds. For the rest of humanity though? The waitress waiting tables for minimum wage.

Re:Vast exaggeration

[Dragonslicer]

Ginko also isn't a "bank" in the usual term of the word; it's not regulated or insured in any way and isn't impacted by any of the legal requirements of real world financial institutions. Quite frankly; you're an idiot if you trust them with your money. So they're the Second Life version of PayPal?

Re:Vast exaggeration

[sfjoe]

That's the whole reason US money is worth something, because the government guarantees they will accept it in payment of taxes.

Well, that's *A* reason but not "the whole reason". The US dollar is unique amongst currencies as it is close to being a global currency. It is accepted in nearly every country and some countries even use it as their own official currency rather than print their own. People accept it as having value because the know it will retain value in the future making it the world's foremost reserve currency.

Re:Vast exaggeration

[SatanicPuppy]

Might as well put it in the lottery. If they're returning 100% interest, then someone is getting screwed somewhere.

Banks make money through investing in other people's projects, and by loaning money for interest. Like everything else, it's a diminishing return, so you can't loan money at an equal rate to the interest rate you're giving your depositors, so either they're loaning your money to people at an interest rate that is higher than 100%, with no possible way to collect on a bad debt.

Chances are they were using that money to finance one of the now-illegal casino's, which would make sense, as that's about the only way to make money in SL that would actually require an input of cash. Now that they've tanked there is basically no longer any point in a bank that actually pays interest. There is nowhere for the money to come from.

Re:Vast exaggeration

[Belacgod]

I won't accept anyone else's snot but the GP's to pay my debts! Everyone else's snot is counterfeit!

Re:Vast exaggeration

[Control Group]

Control Group is a monkey brain!

Good start.

Legal tender is NOTHING to do with transactions per se. I can demand that I am paid in anything. Quite often US transactions are conducted in Pounds Sterling, or Euros, particularly if there is some forex issue in the bargain.

If you specify a different medium of exchange beforehand, yes. As I admitted in another post, I was being overly simplistic. You may not retroactively elect to not accept dollars as payment.

Now, debts here are usually valued in dollars. If I owe you $100, I might offer you a gold bracelet worth more, and you would be within your rights to refuse. I might offer you my daughter. You might accept. But if I offered you 100 greenbacks, you would not be within your rights to refuse. They are Legal Tender, and must be accepted.

What kind of distinction between "debt" and "debt" are you trying to draw? If you owe me $100 because I served you dinner at a restaurant, I may not suddenly demand payment in the form of your daughter's services. This is not in any real sense different than if you owe me $100 because I loaned you $75 at 33% interest. Either way, you owe me $100; what transaction incurred that debt is irrelevant - all that matters is that we did not agree beforehand on a different method of payment.

And the idea that money is valuable because the government says it is ... Blockhead!!!

At the moment the Zimbabwean government is saying that the Zimbabwean dollar is worth 1/250 of a US dollar. Try getting that!

Value is what it's always been - a feature of a comodity which has utility and is scarce.

What an interesting point you've made. Where, exactly, do you suppose the "utility" of the dollar comes from? Its caloric value? Its insulating properties? Its ideal shape for snorting coke? Oh, right, it has utility because the US government says it does.

And since you need utility and scarcity for a commodity to have value - as you so soberly indicate - the dollar has value because the US government says it does. The fact that you have conflated "has value" with "has a specific market value" in your head does not mean that's what I said or what I meant. The US government can't dictate a market value for the dollar any more than Zimbabwe can. It does not follow that, therefore, the value of the dollar is not based on the US government.

Oh, and - you're a stupid poopyhead garbageface.

Re:Vast exaggeration

[morgan_greywolf]

You could substitue any nations currency in the world with "U.S. Dollar" and be correct about it no longer being truly backed by gold, and I suppose the rest of your point. On the other hand... the FED has stopped releasing Money Supply figures... hmmm go figure.

And they've been holding interest rates steady, despite the obvious need to lower them to juice up the economy.

Pay attention, people! I believe that the U.S. economy is currently collapsing under its own weight. This collapse should be completed within the next 4 years. This is going to make the Great Depression look like a temporary market correction.

Re:Vast exaggeration

[Bluesman]

"Dollars have a value because the supply is limited."

The supply of Confederate dollars is much more limited, but they are essentially worthless.

The only thing that gives anything value is what someone else is willing to do in exchange for it. People accept dollars in exchange for other things in many places, so it has value as a currency. Why do they do that? Only because everybody else does.

Let's go to the desert island model that's always so helpful. Two people on a desert island, one has water, the other has dollars. What's the inherent value of a dollar there? Nothing. There's no way the guy with the water is going to give it up unwillingly in exchange for dollars.

Now the guy with the water sees a rescue ship on the horizon, and offers the water for $100,000. Why? Because his perceived value of the dollar just went up, because he knows he will be going back to a place where everyone else accepts the dollar.

It seems odd that the value of currency is based completely on emotional things like "willingness," but really that's the way it works.

People are idiots

[eln]

If this sort of thing affects your finances in any major way, you're a moron for "investing" your money in a game. Just because Linden Labs decided to publish an exchange rate for their dollars and real dollars doesn't mean their dollars are a good investment vehicle. Their economy is completely unregulated, and their "banks" are run by anonymous people in foreign countries well outside the reach of US laws (the guy they interviewed is in Brazil, for example).

You might as well call playing the slots in Vegas a retirement plan, it's probably less risky.

Re:People are idiots

[Silver Sloth]

You might as well call playing the slots in Vegas a retirement plan, it's probably less risky. Definitely less risky. In Vegas you know exactly what the odds are, they may be against you, but they're known. I would say that a better analogy is investing in rich Nigerians who want to get their funds to the west.

Re:People are idiots

[esampson]

..Just because Linden Labs decided to publish an exchange rate for their dollars and real dollars doesn't mean their dollars are a good investment vehicle...

Just to pick nits but LindenLabs doesn't really publish an exchange rate, at least not in the sense that you would seem to imply. What LL really does is act as a middle man between two players exchanging LindenDollars for US Dollars. The person selling the LindenDollars sets the sell rate at whatever they wish and their money goes into a big pool with a tag for that exchange amount. When another player wishes to purchase LindenDollars they set the buy rate at whatever the maximum is that they are willing to pay and if there is anything in the pool at that sell value or less it is purchased at the sell value originally tagged. LL makes a little bit of money from the deal as a brokerage fee.

The exchange rates published by LL are the low, high, and average exchanges of the day so the values aren't set at all by LL. Now technically, yes, you are correct when you say LL publishes an exchange rate but the implication in that statement seems to me to be that they set that exchange rate. In this they no more set the exchange rate than, say, the Wall Street Journal when it publishes the exchange rate of the US dollar against the Yen. The value isn't really arbitrarily set but is set by the faith people hold in the currency.

None of which is to really say that people investing large amounts of money into LindenDollars aren't being foolish. It seems to be a very high risk investment. Just that there is a bit more backing up the value of the LindenDollar than a company saying 'this is it'.

Another scam?

[jandrese]

The article is lighter on details than it should be for an article that spans two pages, but it looks to me like someone set up yet another "bank", promising high returns (and actually delivering for awhile), that was actually just a pyramid scheme. Once the pyramid gets big enough the creator always grabs the money and runs, and people cry and write articles about it.

Really people, there is no reason to invest in these "banks" in SecondLife (or any other game). Your money is safe in your own account. It's not like it's any safer in one of these "banks", in fact the opposite is true since you're forced to trust a random guy on the internet who has absolutely no laws or regulations backing him up.

The ban on gambling shouldn't have made too much difference. Everybody knows that every form of gambling in SL was fixed anyway. I don't know anybody who actually used them.

Re:Another scam?

[AVee]

"The article is lighter on details than it should be for an article that spans two pages, but it looks to me like someone set up yet another "bank", promising high returns (and actually delivering for awhile), that was actually just a pyramid scheme. Once the pyramid gets big enough the creator always grabs the money and runs, and people cry and write articles about it."

Al very true, but in the end it might just be the game which is a pyramid scheme, not just the bank inside the game. If Lindon were to pull the plug out of the game right now, where would you go to exchange your Lindon Dollars for real ones?

What Do You Expect

[mfh]

Video Games are designed to be fun and typically fantasy based. People will give away money to the makers of video games for hours of enjoyment.

The reality is that anyone who lost money on this is getting what they paid for.

Re:What Do You Expect

[DaleGlass]

Well, SL really isn't much of a game. You can implement games inside it, but it's not a game itself.

And while some people do have lots of fun there, others do business. Business is quite possibly to do successfully in SL, but just like in reality they go bankrupt as well when things don't go as planned.

tho?

[CompMD]

Every time you use "tho" in place of the actual word "though," God kills a kitten.

Slow news day in the real world...

[QuietLagoon]

So we have to read articles about news in a fake world?

Obl. Quote

[Rixel]

You're thinking of this place all wrong. As if I had the money back in a safe. The money's not here. Your money's in Joe's imaginary house...right next to yours. And in the imaginary Kennedy house, and Mrs. Macklin's imaginary house, and a hundred other imaginary houses. Why, you're lending them the money to build, and then, they're going to pay it back to you as best they can. Now what are you going to do? Foreclose on them?...Now wait...now listen...now listen to me. I beg of you not to do this thing. If Potter gets hold of this Virtual Building and Loan there'll never be another decent imaginary house built in this imaginary town. He's already got charge of the imaginary bank. He's got the imaginary bus line. He's got the imaginary department stores. And now he's after us. Why? Well, it's very simple. Because we're cutting in on his business, that's why. And because he wants to keep you living in his imaginary slums and paying the kind of rent he decides. Joe, you lived in one of his imaginary houses, didn't you? Well, have you forgotten? Have you forgotten what he charged you for that imaginary broken-down shack? Here, Ed. You know, you remember last year when things weren't going so well, and you couldn't make your payments. You didn't lose your imaginary house, did you? Do you think Potter would have let you keep it? Can't you understand what's happening here? Don't you see what's happening? Potter isn't selling. Potter's buying! And why? Because we're panicky and he's not. That's why. He's picking up some bargains. Now, we can get through this thing all right. We've got to stick together, though. We've got to have faith in each other.

It's a wonderful life.

[Paranoia Agent]

You're thinking of this place all wrong. As if I had the money back in a safe. The money's not here. Your money's in Joe's S & M fetish dungeon...right next to yours. And in the Kennedy's warehouse of flying penises, and Mrs. Macklin's Fur-suit emporium, and a hundred others. Why, you're lending them the money to build, and then, they're going to pay it back to you as best they can. Now what are you going to do? Foreclose on them?

Is anyone really surprised by this?

[blueZ3]

The whole concept of virtual money that is traded in a virtual environment was a "bank-run" waiting to happen.

Linden-dollars (or whatever they're called) are backed by the full faith and credit of Linden Labs. Which is a lot less comforting to the average person than being backed by the U.S. government. Once Linden starts to lose credibility (and how was money "stolen" from the stock market) all those Lindenbacks are going to be worth the bits they're printed on.

I'm shocked, absolutely shocked to find gambling going on here.

Re:Is anyone really surprised by this?

[venicebeach]

and how was money "stolen" from the stock market

Apparently it was an inside job. Someone involved with fixing the ATM system hacked it. Full story here.

Saw this coming...

[ZorinLynx]

I knew this was coming.

In the past couple of weeks I heard of at least three people who had trouble getting money out of Ginko.

Word gets around quickly in these cases; as soon as people found out Ginko isn't paying out withdrawls they lose confidence and want their money back, just as would happen with a real bank.

Thankfully I have no money in Ginko. No way in hell I was ever going to trust them.

At least...

[wpegden]

at least we're finally seeing some believable estimates as to the number of active second life users. 5 to 6.

Re:You don't think debt is a commodity?

[Control Group]

Yes, debt is a commodity of sorts, I suppose. But debt, like Linden dollars, is still virtual, right? If not, post a link to a picture of debt. Point is, there's no physical commodity backing dollars at all. It used to be back by gold, but it's not anymore.

That's a bit disingenuous - I challenge to post a link to a picture of "value." The very notion of value is virtual, since the universe certainly doesn't care whether there's gold in them thar hills.

And don't fall into the trap of thinking that gold is somehow magical in its ability to have value. Gold is only valuable because people say it is, just like the US dollar. The only difference is that the scarcity of gold is based on physics and the relative difficulty of building a supercollider, while the scarcity of US dollars is based on the desire of the US to have a functioning economy.

If you don't believe me, think about how you'd value the following if modern civilization were to collapse - potable water, food, matches, ammunition, tobacco, liquor, coffee, paper, gold. Now imagine everyone else thinking the same thing (because civilization has collapsed).

Could be worse...

[n dot l]

Could be "Girl builds computer in online game while online boyfriend watches. Look, he has screen shots."

Fiat currencies have several problems.

[Colin Smith]

The gold standard is ridiculous and archaic It ended in 1971 after a thousand years of use. Neither ridiculous nor particularly archaic.

There's nothing wrong with fiat currency. It decreases in value every year destroying the value of savings.

It allows the government the ability to pay for anything it likes which leads to the inevitable increases in power of the political elite, the banks and the largest multinational corporations which service government interests.

It requires an exponentially increasing economy and debt burden just to maintain the status quo and make interest payments. This has a devastating effect on the environment and human being's work/life balance.

Those are just off the top of my head. There are more disadvantages.

The currency shapes our society.

Re:Fiat currencies have several problems.

[Anonymous Coward]

The value of first-world fiat currency has been far more stable than the value of gold. A gold-standard economy can collapse for no meaningful reason simply because the supply of gold is restricted. Those "thousand years" you mention were filled with wars over a useless metal!

Re:Fiat currencies have several problems.

[sleeper0]

The gold standard is ridiculous and archaic It ended in 1971 after a thousand years of use. Neither ridiculous nor particularly archaic.

There's nothing wrong with fiat currency. It decreases in value every year destroying the value of savings. So just to be clear, you're saying there was no inflation in the USD prior to 1971?

Re:Fiat currencies have several problems.

[Shelrem]

The gold standard is terrible, leads to recessions, and in general unnecessarily constrains the economy. Here's a hint: if you think money is generally created by printing more currency, you obviously don't know what the hell you're talking about. Even if you understand how money is created, you still may not. For a thorough debunking of the gold standard, read this: http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/goldbug.html

For an introduction on how money is created, try this: http://ingrimayne.com/econ/Banking/Commodity2.html

Re:Fiat currencies have several problems.

[Knara]

Of course there wasn't! GOLDGOLDGOLDGODLGOLDGOLD!!!!!!!!111

I'm fairly certain that those who base their entire dislike of the movement away from "gold standards" in currency matters overlap to a great extent with those who don't really understand economics on some imaginary Venn diagram.

Re:Fiat currencies have several problems.

[Mr. Bad Example]

> Here's a hint: if you think money is generally created by printing more currency,
> you obviously don't know what the hell you're talking about.

Wait...wh-? Seriously?

Oh, shit. Excuse me--I have to call Kinko's and cancel an order right now.

Re:Fiat currencies have several problems.

[nocaster]

The value of first-world fiat currency has been far more stable than the value of gold. A gold-standard economy can collapse for no meaningful reason simply because the supply of gold is restricted. Those "thousand years" you mention were filled with wars over a useless metal!

And all the wars stopped when we started using Federal Reserve Notes.

Re:Fiat currencies have several problems.

[servognome]

It ended in 1971 after a thousand years of use. Neither ridiculous nor particularly archaic.

Or it ended anytime the government felt like it (eg to pay for wars). Basically the key reason to use a gold standard, to prevent overspending by government, never worked in practice

It decreases in value every year destroying the value of savings.

Forcing investment, which is a much better use for capital to expand the economy.

It requires an exponentially increasing economy and debt burden just to maintain the status quo and make interest payments. This has a devastating effect on the environment and human being's work/life balance.

It requires and exponentially increasing economy to meet the demands of exponentially increasing populations. An economy based on a fixed resource results in deflation which will actually prevent the economy from keeping pace with population. For example it was difficult for farmers in the late 19th century to get capital because of the fixed gold based money supply. With supply and demand, the rich will get richer just sitting on money, rather than what we have today where it requires investment and economic expansion to become wealthier.

Re:Fiat currencies have several problems.

[Dolly_Llama]

Not surprising that Krugman, being a Keynesian,

"We're all Keynesians now." --Richard Nixon

There's truth to that too. The primary difference between the Keynesians is more who gets the government money than anything else.

Re:Fiat currencies have several problems.

[Knara]

I'm just going to go ahead and assume that since you posted as an AC, that you looked up "economics" on Wikipedia in order to try to "zing!" me, and not bother to argue with you. kthx.

Re:Fiat currencies have several problems.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Actually, those with money would leave the country and live well because their cash just became worth a whole lot more. Those without would starve.

If those with money left this country in the dead of night, those without could simply raid the storehouses of food left behind. OR, better yet, actually take over the farms stolen by the white man to begin with.

People certainly do need to eat, but there would be no investment. Most likely what you would see would be alternate fiat currency like we saw during the great depression.

Fine with me. Alternate fiat currency takes control out of the hands of the central bankers and returns it to where it belongs, the local villages.

It would mean that we'd be in the same position as Germany pre-WW2. Either we keep paying or we default on our loans. Defaulting on our loans would cause a world-wide economic disaster, so the most likely course of action for other countries that thought we were going to do so would be to threaten to invade if we tried it.

We're going to default on our loans anyway, eventually, so why not do it in one fell swoop? It's not like anybody believes the lie that wealth is created out of nothing, and that's what we have left in the United States at this point, a service economy, a whole lot of nothin'.

It is sensible precisely because it works and doesn't cause us to ruin billions of lives by sending the entire world into a depression.

And it's completely unsustainable and will eventually collapse, ruining billions of lives and sending the entire world into a depression anyway. Once again, all this does is hasten the inevitable.

Some perspective

[amyhughes]

These "banks" and other "economic institutions" are given more legitimacy than they deserve, and their impact is grossly over-stated.

Before casinos were banned the daily SL economy was about US $2 Million per day. That's the total amount of all transactions between residents that Linded Labs (who run Second Life) knows about. It's currently running about US $1.4 Million. That's a big hit, but the difference was people putting money into slot machines. The banning has hurt some people running unregulated gambling scripts, and benefitted the idiots that were feeding them. A wash, AFAIC.

The Ginko thing also only affects a scammer and his victims, and is only US $0.75 Million. Less than a day's economic activity. Those people payed into a ponzi scheme, and like the gamblers, they had no reason to expect a return. Some might say that whatever the "banker" invested in will suffer, but until proven otherwise, his "investments" are probably real-world. That money is already gone from the economy, and it's not an economy-crashing amount even if some of it actually is invested in SL.

The real danger is to the land barons, who continue to buy up all the virtual land The Labs has to offer; much of it up for sale as casinos also sell off their land. Them, and Linden Lab itself, who stand to lose tier payments on land people can't afford to hold. But if a hypothetical sell-off is short-lived and is absorbed by new members and other residents suddenly able to buy cheap land, LL stands to gain as they get to re-sell land that is abandoned; land they already sold once and will get to sell again. The most likely scenario is that land re-sale prices (prices residents pay each other, not The Labs) will go down some, and The Labs will be unaffected. It is probable, in fact, that they want land prices to go down so people will buy more of it. They make much more money on monthly land payments than they do selling land (i.e. server space) to land barons.

Enough with the bullshit subscriber numbers

[dircha]

"this could supposedly affect 8.5M players even tho most estimates of actual hard core players in the system are in the 5 to low 6 figure range"

Oh give it the fuck up already. It was just 2 weeks ago we covered this. Second Life does not have 8.5M active subscribers. It does not have 5-6M active subscribers. IT DOESN'T HAVE HALF THAT.

Second Life has 20-30,000 active subscribers, THAT IS ALL.

I'm so goddamn sick of this media blitz on Slashdot by Second Life's lame fanbois. You're damn right this is inflammatory, because I and a good number of the rest of the readers here are sick and tired of seeing these folks abuse Slashdot with their little fake media drama, as often as several times a week, to benefit the bottom line of Linden Labs.

At least give us someway to filter these stories out. People who want to stay abreast of the latest little events in this insignificant virtual "meeting place" can read the fan sites instead; I'm sure they do.

Re:Enough with the bullshit subscriber numbers

[DaleGlass]

Just a little correction: The 20-30K number is the amount of people logged in right now.

Since people generally can't remain awake and logged into SL 24/7, there's got to be more active accounts than that.

Re:Enough with the bullshit subscriber numbers

[emurphy42]

"5 to low 6 figure range" does not mean "5 to 6 million"; it means "10000-99999 (5 figure) to the low end of 100000-999999 (6 figure)". Which, lo and behold, matches right up with your "20 to 30 thousand" (not to mention the previous reply's "actually it's rather more than that").

Re:You don't think debt is a commodity?

[Reverend528]

Ammunition can always get you gold

Yes, but liquor can always get you drunk. That's why it's at the top of my list.

Great. Now I'm Dead.

[Arthur Grumbine]

From laughing so hard. Not actually from the laughing but from the conversation with my boss afterward. Not so much dead because of the conversation with the boss, as because of the fight with my wife after returning home early to let her know I lost my job because of casual internet browsing. Not actually immediately from the fight with my wife as from the knife she jammed through my skull.

Thanks a lot buddy!!

Re:You don't think debt is a commodity?

[zobier]

think about how you'd value the following if modern civilization were to collapse - potable water, food, matches, ammunition, tobacco, liquor, coffee, paper, gold. Sounds great, where do I sign up.