"A currency is a unit of exchange, facilitating the transfer of goods and services." - Wikipedia.

"'Fictional Currency' is used as game tokens and have no monetary value in and of themselves and as a result are not be taxable as income. In most cases a fictional currency constitutes a limited license right for use by account holders and is subject to the terms of each Fictional Currency provider. The World Stock Exchange supports the "Linden Currency" (Linden Dollar, LND$, L$, Lindens) and the "World Internet Currency" (WIC, WICS, W$)." - LukeConnell Vandeverre, Chairman and CEO, World Stock Exchange.

Vandeverre is right ... and wrong when he says "have no monetary value". You see, as long as he sticks to first party tokens (W$, in this case) he's right. We're just talking game tokens. However, any interaction with Linden Dollars (L$) or other currencies messes up the statement.

While not strictly an MMO by any means, MMOMoney fits the category by being a site in which one may track virtual currency prices across MMOs. The site promises offering stats that will be of use to those looking for the best deals in exchanging virtual cash for Real money, as there are many unscrupulous dealers out there, and this is something that's not limited to gold farming in WoW.

Currently in Beta, the site's author promises that more and more currencies (on other words, MMO titles) will become available over time. Give this site a look and help support its growth; given time, this could be a very useful resource!

Incidentally, my brain keeps trying to read 'MMOMoney' as 'moo money' -- apologies to both entities!

(Thanks, BR!)

Adam Reuters reports on this story, and gives us all a heads-up. The UK's Fraud Advisory Panel recommends that governments apply RL money laws to SL's economy, stating that fraud, money laundering, and other such crimes are more likely to happen there due to its relaxed and unregulated nature.

If this is really going to happen, I have to wonder if RL businesses will be able to get the same sort of tax benefits and shelters that they do in RL. H & R Block might find they have more to do with SL than they'd previously thought after all. What do you think, should the government regulate currency trade in SL?

The latest metrics and statistics are out from Meta Linden this month, covering April. Remember that period of troubles last month where many said that Second Life was crumbling and that they expected to see some serious falls?

Did the predicted doom come about? Time to look at the numbers.

Yesterday in Second Life we:

• Spent $1,122,000 at an exchange rate of L$267:US$1 (total reported transactions).
• Exchanged $194,000 on Lindex, an average of $8,100 per hour
• Again limit-limit transactions are tiny ($400)
• Market buys $148,000, market sales $46,000
• The busiest times were 12 noon and 1pm, with over $12,000 changing hands
• The quietest time was 2am, with just over $4,000 changing hands, almost $1,000 less than in any other hour.
• Quickly polling other parts of the mainland shows land prices still around L$17/sqm - but there's a lot of variation out there.

Zee Linden has pushed out a bundle of figures for us to chew on. It covers a broader range of figures than previously.

November's anomalous growth in premium accounts (30%), has stabilized to an average 16.5% per month so far this year, which is more in keeping with Second Life's normal premium account growth. Second Life's average user age continues to creep upwards, now up one year to 33.

Overall land area grew 22.8% in January, compared to 15.2% in the previous month, and Lindex activity continued to rise; by 28.5% through January.

I don't know quite what to say. You'd think this one would be a non-issue. You'd hope this one would be a non-issue, but apparently one of the Second Life media myths is as strong or stronger than ever. Let's not beat around the bush here:


If you hear otherwise, you've either misunderstood or are being misinformed.

Our brethren at Joystiq have posted an article that should be of much interest to followers/detractors of SL currency movement: The Austin Games Conference hosted a presentation by Sam Lewis, the lead designer of the Cartoon Network's upcoming MMOG, on the creation and management of an online economy.

Presented in Powerpoint with accompanying notes, Lewis' presentation covers Economics basics before delving into what changes are necessary to utilize an Economics model when analyzing online virtual world currency traffic. It's an interesting look, and worth thinking about, considering how SL's market tends to fluctuate. Get Your Econ On!