Kitely Forums

BACKGROUND: It was annouced a few weeks ago that the Federal Government of the United States was deeming internet currecny as real money. Their target is Bitcoins, but the sweep takes in the currecny used in Second Life also. http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2013/0 ... eal-money/
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And so Sl pulls a Chicken Little ("The Sky is Falling!!!") and decides to do something drastic. The changed their Terms of Service to forbade anyone from trading the SL currency besides themselves.

So today Hypergrid business reported that 8 currency exchange companies have immediately stopped trading in Lindens http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2013/0 ... y-trading/

(and, of course, Anshe Chung's currency exchange refuses to do so).

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IF:

The SL stops allowing merchants to cash-out Lindens - merchants will start to only accept Payapal;
The merchants make all of their transactions Paypal only - they may lose sales from Euro customers.

Linden Lab will have to enable purchases with the OMC currency in order to allow the Euros to retain their purchasing power in Second Life.

VirWox has their own currency:

The Open Metaverse Currency (OMC) is a virtual currency. Its currency unit is the Open Metaverse Cent (OM¢). It is used to buy or sell virtual goods or services in virtual environments (worlds).

Unlike other virtual currencies it is accepted in a number of such worlds, not just one. Specifically, it is compatible with the OpenSim HyperGrid. This means you can go shopping with your avatar in any of the OMC-enabled grids, and pay in a single virtual currency from a single account. And if you run a business in one of those grids, you can receive OMC from users all around the hypergrid.

OMC can be bought or sold for real-world currencies such as EUR and USD.
https://www.virwox.com/omc-open-metaver ... p#gridlist

More info just hit the wire:

A money transmitter is a vehicle FinCEN uses to bring virtual currency exchangers and administrators under the definition of an MSB:

"an administrator or exchanger is an MSB under FinCEN’s regulations, specifically, a money transmitter, unless a limitation to or exemption from the definition applies to the person" (FIN-2013-G001, p1)

Money transmitter businesses commonly charge a fee for taking money from a person in one location, and delivering it to a person in another one. Common examples of money transmitters include: Western Union, Money Gram, and PayPal.

The same regulation tells us that a person is not a money transmitter if all he is doing is giving access to network through which the money is moving, or if the person physically moves the money. A person is not a money transmitter if all he does is act as a clearing house between sender and receiver.

Linden Lab will have to register. Linden Lab issues virtual currency.

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It would not have helped Linden Lab to be considered a currency exchanger instead of a money transmitter. The law makes an exception only for currency exchangers who transact currency exchanges in the amount greater than $1,000 on any given day.

U.S. law imposes both civil and criminal penalties for failing to register business as a money transmitter. Once the statutory six month period (6 months after March 18, 2013) for when virtual currency money transmitters must register, the government will be able to start prosecuting people who do not comply.

http://www.epaylaw.com/2013/05/08/i-dea ... if-i-dont/

Chicken Little, lol. Yah, and it doesn't help Linden Lab's case that they acted like a small country and floated the exchange rate of L$ against other currencies, rather than having a fixed price and a bit more transparency. Which was something I argued for in forums long ago and gave up trying to explain, lol. I am surprised that it took the Treasury Dept so long, and that LL didn't see it coming. Watching events with great interest! Thanks Blady.

Ada Radius wrote:Chicken Little, lol.

So Anshe Chung refuses to stop trading Lindens and the next day everyone that has ever had an account with her gets their SL accounts locked.

E-mailed received by Anshe's customer base (and they could no longer log into Second Life after receiving the e-mail):

"Dear Second Life user,

It has come to our attention that a site you visit may have suffered a security breach. The owner of the site, Anshe Chung, informed us of the matter and is taking steps on her end to ensure the security of her sites. For further details on the breach please contact her Customer Support directly.

Because you may use or have used her site in conjunction with your Second Life account, we have chosen to act with an overabundance of caution to protect your Second Life account from possible unauthorized access by scrambling the password.

To change the password on your account please go tohttps://secondlife.com/my/account/request.php (or go to secondlife.com and choose the “Forgot your login information?” option from the Login page). An email will be sent to the address associated with your Second Life account with instructions. Please note that you will need to provide the answer to your Account Security Question.

If you are not able to complete the above process please submit a Support case by going to https://support.secondlife.com/create-case/ (or support.secondlife.com and choose the “Submit A Support Case form” option).

Please do NOT use the same password for your Second Life that you had previously used, and do not use a password you use on any other site.


Best,

Linden Lab"

Checking the dates of the posts in the Anshe Chung email thread suggests this happened a long time before the ToS stuff erupted, i.e. March this year, so the events are unlikely to be related.

I thought you had me on mute

The object 'VirWoX Partner Network' has sent you a message from Second Life:
Dear VirWoX Partner,

unfortunately the new TOS of Linden Lab do not allow us to continue to offer our Service in Second Life.
Please remove all VirWoX objects including VirWoX terminals (ATMs) from your land.
Thank you for your help!



Shit just got real. And there goes my ATM...

no, not real, it is just sl-))))

Anche's selling L$ cheaper than LL is, this morning, oooo, though not by much, 4% ish.
hokay hokay enough with the gossip this morning, me, I need to get some work done, and when I think about it, I don't actually care what happens with SL. except in the schadenfreude sense, lolololol.