[ExI] Banking and e-money in Second Life (and beyond)

[Eugen Leitl]

Banking in Second Life and new private e-payment systems:

http://transumanar.com/index.php/site/banking_and_e_money_in_second_life_and_beyond/

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 bstrong 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 bmagic 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 balternative 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
brest 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: bIn 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"
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