Talk:Economy of Second Life

Economy of Second Life is not numismatic
If someone wants a numismatism article about Second Life, fine. Just don't hijack this one. Lee.Sailer 21:17, 11 January 2007 (UTC) This needs more info

Other exchanges than Lindex?
The article mentions that there are other currency exchanges than the official LindeX. Which are they? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bromskloss (talk • contribs) 23:03, 26 January 2007 (UTC)


 * SL Exchange is quite popular. &mdash;Slowspace 19:33, 28 January 2007 (UTC)


 * VirWoX too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.27.200.50 (talk) 08:46, 10 July 2008 (UTC)


 * ACE Exchange is mentioned in the article and operates a currency exchange alongside the largest virtual stock exchange in SL, however BNTF, which is also mentioned, is out of business since LL banned interest without RL banking charters.71.95.150.223 (talk) 08:21, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Linden Dollar.jpg
Image:Linden Dollar.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot 05:15, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Is this listing really necessary?
Honestly, there really is not much that is substantive in this Wikipedia listing... a lot of it is written from POV, I see some original research, the sources are not all that great... and in general this page really doesn't have any unique information to support its own listing. Would it be a total crime if we merged this with the larger "Second Life" listing? Timdlocklear (talk) 22:21, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Land Tax and the Euro VAT
Countries set their own standards for how real estate is valued, with many exceptional provisions. The history of lands fought over in Europe, Africa, and the Americas political deal making vary from single family homesteader to large population ruled by monarchy, military-strongman, socialists, or capitalists. Or a mixture of these as well such as armed militias, and powerful blocks of oligarchies. Ultimately land value is determined by these political considerations. One such consideration is attaching value to tangible items such as raw, undeveloped land held in a public trust until dispersed for management or outright ownership. Modern value however goes beyond tangible assets and touches on copyrights and other technologies that contain unique value only assigned by a buying public. Such is the business of selling "services" that may or may not have any tangible, kick the tires feel to them, as the concept of durables and consumables. Land rights beyond fee-simple may exclude mineral rights under any improvements, public space boundaries that adjoin private lots for city utility services, as well as restrictions on use above in the sky, or out in the coastal or landlocked river and lake waterways. Ultimately those who populate the area must decide its value, cease to occupy, or possibly revolt with their own alternative plan. Such squaters, often looked down upon, turn into nomads, street-people, or boat people, or fill up city run services as unhabilitated offenders. In virtual worlds the magic is in the code that runs on the hardware that users place value upon. These may eventually migrate from server farms owned in perpetuity to the corporation to other methods such as that used by SETTI, or shared public systems, or extra cycles on soon-to-be multicore private workstations plugged into an internet provider. There was a time that value was derived at a per-processor level, but that will soon be a historical footnote. User::bwildasi Sat Jul 12 03:37:55 UTC 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bwildasi (talk • contribs) 06:42, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

European VAT and taxation
The tax issues here are complex, I've tried to correct some of the inaccuracies in the article, but cross-borders taxation within and outside the EU is a complex topic, and experts will charge hundreds of Euros an hour for professional advice, so I'm afraid this whole section might be veering off in to original research territory. Having said that, it is clear that LL chose not to create a legally recognised digital currency, and hence not to put themselves in the position of being overseen by European financial regulators. And hence the Linden dollar is defined as a digital service, which is VAT chargeable, and not as a currency, which isn't. The issue of traders treating it as a currency anyway and declaring VAT on their individual transactions is a complex one and will depend on national taxation laws. I think it's likely that capital gains would be more appropriate, but really, you should take professional advice from an expert in your own nations taxation laws. The important thing to remember is this: legally speaking, you are paying to play a game, and not in exchange for a currency! If it were legal currency or even gambling, then VAT would only be chargeable on additional fees, and not the whole transaction. The fact that you can get money back really complicates this model though, and it's even possible that you should be paying capital gains on the whole amount of any monies you receive back from LL. 78.105.220.50 (talk) 15:49, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I did a little more work on it. I know a little bit about US taxes, but not that much about European taxes. The VAT is analogous in many ways to the state sales taxes in the USA, and one similarity is that the government collects the tax from the sellers but the tax is actually being charged to the buyers. A second similarity is that there are a large number of transactions which are theoretically subject to the tax even though no tax is ever collected or the tax is paid in the wrong jurisdiction. As I understand it, real-world cash transactions between SL subscribers and Linden Lab always were subject to VAT, even before the Lab began collecting the tax, and in fact Linden Lab was actually paying VAT to EU Governments. Timothy Horrigan (talk) 02:09, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Something I am unclear on is the VAT status of Linden $ transactions between European residents and Linden Lab. The two categories of such transactions are the L$10/file transfer fee as well as L$-denominated land sales (which would the smaller auctions as well as sales of small parcels of abandoned land.) The Lindens very occasionally sell merchandise inworld to residents, but those are typically freebies. Timothy Horrigan (talk) 02:09, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Trade L$ for Runescape GP?
Does anyone know if you can trade L$ for Runescape GP or any other multiuser game currency? The reason I ask is that Yahoo is trying to get a patent on it. See [Microcurrency Exchange]--Nowa (talk) 23:38, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Is GP freely exchangable for USD or other real life currencies like L$ is? While virtual game currencies like WoW Gold is often sold on ebay and craigslist, this is in violation of official TOS, but Linden Lab encourages exchanging and provides an exchange. Does GP have the same?71.95.150.223 (talk) 08:23, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Other kind of Currencies?
Although I have never used second life, I've heard/seen about it on TV. Since currency is essentially any object to which a group of people attach value to, is it possible that other currencies could arise within this virtual world? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.87.168.251 (talk) 07:38, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Linden Lab prohibits inworld currencies other than the L$.71.95.150.223 (talk) 08:23, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * There are a number of game currencies used in MMO-style role-playing communities (eg, darklife), which can be earned in their regions and used to buy game-specific goods (scripted objects that have an in-game effect). I don't believe these are convertible, for the same reason other MMO currencies are officially non-convertible. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.88.77.145 (talk) 14:41, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Ponsy?
I've been thinking and is it possable to pull a Madoff?

as a pretend investment and make overwhelming profits —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.100.111.211 (talk) 05:54, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

While it is frequently commented that the owner of Ginko Financial walked with nearly three quarters of a million USD, he himself claims he was conned out of most of the banks money by a real life con artist. Either way, the answer is yes, although the userbase of SL seems a lot more leery these days of such investments without managers demonstrating a lot more transparency.71.95.150.223 (talk) 08:25, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Pyramid Scheme?
The section describing the SecondLife economy as a possible pyramid scheme relies on a sole source that is apparently one blog entry made two years ago. It hardly seems to be a universal, or even common opinion, more a "I heard someone say once that" comment. As such, it probably doesn't warrant a separate entry, if at all. I did change the line "Although the normal player also can make and exchange Linden Dollars into US dollars, these sums are dwarfed compared to what a very few SL casinos owners and virtual real estate owners cash in", deleting the reference to "casinos [sic] owners" as casinos have been banned from the game since July 2007. —Preceding unsigned comment added by VirTom (talk • contribs) 17:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Severely dated
This entire article is seriously out of date. The current L$ value is about 250/US$, for example. Historical information is very useful, but this article purports to be more than historical. Longthinker (talk) 00:41, 31 March 2013 (UTC)