SecondLife Bans Unregistered In-World Banks

GuruBuckaroo writes "Virtual Ponzi schemes — pardon, "Banks" — have finally been given the boot by the policymakers at Linden Lab's Second Life. According to the company's latest blog post: 'As of January 22, 2008, it will be prohibited to offer interest or any direct return on an investment (whether in L$ or other currency) from any object, such as an ATM, located in Second Life, without proof of an applicable government registration statement or financial institution charter. We're implementing this policy after reviewing Resident complaints, banking activities, and the law, and we're doing it to protect our Residents and the integrity of our economy.'"

Comments

That should've been done day one.

[Khyber]

LL should have had exclusive control over their currency and the exchange thereof to begin with. Allowing other parties to do this for them was an open invitation for them and their users to get shafted.

Morons.

Run on the banks?

[jorghis]

Of course what really just happened is that they have triggered a massive run on the banks now. Is it better to wait for all the different banks to fail or ban them causing everyone to withdraw their money at once? You are giong to see every bank going the way of Ginko in the very near future now. (even that tiny minority that wasnt offering ponzi scheme style interest rates)

Let's see if real banks move in

[Animats]

Being a bank in Second Life isn't very attractive to real banks, because they can't create money in Second Life, like they can in the real world.

First They Came for the Gaming...

[Nom du Keyboard]

First it was the gaming.
Now it's the banks.

What good is 2L if you can't virtually explore the things there that aren't possible, safe, legal, or some combination of all of these virtually? I don't need every part of my life to have training wheels.

So how long before virtual sex entirely is gone too?
Followed by avatars who are too sexy, or provacative.

2L was a place were you could learn life lessons by being stupid. Now it seems intending to become one of the more restrictive Middle East countries instead.

SL Imitates FL

[Doc Ruby]

That's more like a law of government than like a law of nature.

We're seeing the exact process by which people create governments to protect our rights. Since SL already had what was equivalent to tribal and voluntary governments, we are seeing something much like the process SL'ers learned about in history.