Banking in Second Life and new private e-payment systems: http://transumanar.com/index.php/site/banking_and_e_money_in_second_life_and... Banking and e-money in Second Life (and beyond) In the image below, my Second Life avatar is operating a virtual ATM of BNT Financial to deposit or withdraw some Linden Dollars. Or perhaps he wants to exchange Linden Dollars for real money, or money for lindens. We see more and more frequently similar scenes in SL. Then of course there are virtual stock exchanges where you can trade stock of companies that exist only within the SL economy. Looks like an interesting trend. image BNT Financial is a part of BNT Holdings. Brautigan and Tuck (BNT) Holdings was founded in the virtual world of Second Life in October 2006. CEO, IntLibber Brautigan had a vision for a virtual world built on the principles and vision of Neal Stephenson in his novel Snow Crash, where a free-market ungoverned future was possible through contract law and personal accountability. BNT also operate the Ancapistan Capital Exchange, providing not only stock exchange services, but currency exchange, currency futures, and land futures exchange services in SL, and interworld. ACE was founded on the premise that the L$ is not fictional, SL is a business platform, and our businesses in SL are not games. BNT Financial only invests in the fast growing SL economy and pays a 0.05% daily interest, approximately 22% annually. I have some little money in BNT Financial, and some little money in BNT stock on ACE, and recommend BNT to all those who make some money in SL. Especially to transhumanists: this is the business of one of us. Look for BNT ATMs in uvvy islands and other transhumanist hangouts. See this recent interview with IB/ML. Most transhumanists in SL know that IntLibber Brautigan is our transhumanist friend Mike Lorrey, who certainly cannot be accused of thinking small. He is one of those who have taken the metaverse of Snow Crash very seriously and seen the metaverse as a business platform. He is also an outspoken Libertarian and member of the Free State Project - one of those who walked the walk and moved to New Hampshire to build b strong communities where your rights are respected, and people exercise responsibility for themselves and in their dealings with each otherb . I do not share Mikebs quite radical libertarianism - I am one of those who think that there are no such things as one-size-fits-all b magic bulletsb in politics and economics - but certainly share some of his views and values. See this video on blip.tv for his September 11 speech in the SL reconstruction of the WTC (image below). image Though I am not always against government regulation, I have the feeling that today there is too much regulation, and far too much paperwork. The Internet should be used to save time. I want to use my time to make some money, and not to fill form after form to process and justify each and every transaction. So I have always been interested in Internet payment systems, and thank Paypal for all the time it saves. Of course also Paypal is becoming more and more time consuming because of regulatory pressure. I really wish to see a system for global citizens freely exchanging usable e-currency with only a minimum of regulation. Of course I am aware that criminals and terrorists would also use the system for privacy and money laundering, but I think a good response to criminals and terrorists should NOT also make life impossible for the rest of us. Second Life is a good parallel microeconomy platform because it permits making quick and efficient P2P and B2B micropayments. The main disadvantage of the system is that it is controlled by a single company, but that will change sooner or later. Of course at some point one needs to take money out of SL to pay bills, and that is the point where paperwork and taxes come in. Again, I am not in against (reasonable) taxes in principle, but very much against wasting time. Other e-payment systems are real b alternative currenciesb backed by gold or other precious metals. The best known are E-gold and Pecunix. Both can be bought and sold at independent exchanges live Vertoro. E-gold has been under severe regulatory pressure, Pecunix (in Switzerland) not yet. Two of the newest and hottest systems, eCache and Loom, are based on advanced schemes and algorithms and seem to offer much better privacy - like cash, but electronic cash that can be exchanged on the net. Look for entries on eCache and Loom on Digital Money World. Like for exchanging music and movies on the net, I think this trend cannot be stopped. It is just too convenient for end users, and in the long run the b rest of the worldb will have to adapt by finding alternative ways to compensate creative artists, fight criminals and pay for government. One of the comments to eCache : Anonymous Digital Bearer Certificates on Digital Money World is very interesting: b In the 1990s, the NSA tried stamp out independent cryptography software development and prosecute Phil Zimmerman after the source code to his PGP privacy suite was leaked on-line. This bdisasterb led almost directly to Netscape creating SSL, the technology that protects most web-based financial transactions. By trying to stamp out E-gold, which is account based and relatively traceable, the Secret Service has now set off a bdigital arms raceb which has already resulted in the launch of eCache, a non-account-based, or digital banknote, currency. It doesnbt take a genius to see that, like the spread of crypto privacy software before it, vibrant financial services with end-user controlled privacy are emergingb& like it or notb . Posted by G.P. on 11/19 at 11:04 AM English b" Views b" (0) Comments b" Permalink b" Print