WSE Swaps Fictional Currencies, Might Be Trading In March
by Jessica Holyoke on 25/02/08 at 12:38 am
Roleplaying CEO’s pretend stock market still down after 51 days
by Jessica Holyoke
Who wants Kool-Aid?
LukeConnell Vandeverre of Hope Capital Ltd, made an announcement via video link outside of Second Life on Sunday about the status of the World Stock Exchange. (WSE). The WSE went dark fifty one days ago with an announcement that they would be down for a month.
In his opening remarks, Vandeverre reminded market watchers that the WSE is the first Internet based stock market/bank and role playing game. Vandeverre also reminded people about the history of the WSE, and how back in December of 2006, he saw a need for a virtual economy to have a virtual stock exchange. After the virtual financial history lesson, the topic turned to what is happening with the WSE in relation to Second Life moving forward.
While both the Linden dollar and the World Internet Currency are both fictional currency and game tokens, only the World Internet Currency was going to be used on the WSE from the time the stock exchange becomes operational again in mid to late March. The reason given was that with the banking ban, which is formally known as a ban on paying interest, the WSE foresaw the Lab making many decisions not in the WSE’s interest, including possibly doing away with the Linden dollar entirely.
To counter potential Linden Lab concerns about their role playing game, the WSE decided to transfer all stock holder’s balances from Lindens to WIC’s. Previously, the exchange rate was 1 US dollar equaled 1 WIC. With WSE 4.0, 265 WIC’s equals 1 US dollar. All previous WIC balances have been adjusted to reflect this new exchange rate. The WIC can be bought and sold on the WIC currency exchange for US dollars, Australian dollars and Euros via PayPal, Paymate and in the future Western Union. In addition, prepaid credit cards will be usable by those under the age of 18 to take part in the role playing game that is the WSE.
Vanderverre took the time to remind stock holders that CEO’s of companies on the WSE are not really CEO’s, but also role playing participants who are simply learning the stock exchange game themselves.
The reason why the new roll out is taking so long is not only due to using Ruby on Rails as their development language, but also that the WSE cannot afford their own full time developer. So within five days of the developer being finished, testing will commence and trading will resume. Previous versions of WSE have been afflicted with bugs due to unrealistic timelines and hurried expectations.
Many times throughout the announcement, Vanderverre reminded users that both the Linden dollar and the WIC are fictional game tokens that represent a limited license right that users buy and sell the right to, not the underlying Linden dollar or WIC themselves.
While selling off is predicting, Vanderverre reminded stock holders that there would be buyers who would be willing to make a profit off of buying low and then later selling high, although this is not an investment, but rather a role playing game.
With the technology in place, Vanderverre sees the WSE providing 24 hour/7 days a week trading capability and potentially handling real stocks and securities. [will WSE still be fictional at that point? - or is pretending it will be real someday part of the roleplay? - Editrix]
Additional features for WSE 4.0 include the ability to make buy and sell limit orders and not solely making market orders.
Imaginary Man
Feb 25th, 2008
Its Really a joke. I can’t believe that anybody would really have put their L$ into the WSE after many months of scandal and schemes, and repeated insistence by Luke and his boobs that your money is a fiction, the stocks are not real.
What people are learning: if someone insists your money isn’t really really real, they really really dont feel really responsible about really paying it back. Ever. Really.
Nacon
Feb 25th, 2008
“The reason why the new roll out is taking so long is not only due to using Ruby on Rails as their development language, but also that the WSE cannot afford their own full time developer.”
And you believe that?
They don’t plan on going back online. Ever.
Apollo Case
Feb 25th, 2008
“To counter potential Linden Lab concerns about their role playing game, the WSE decided to transfer all stock holder’s balances from Lindens to WIC’s.”
???
free money
Feb 25th, 2008
we still need to know what the fx rate between wic and USD is before we can know for sure how bad this deal is for people who had L$ balances at WSE…
game over
Tyffany Flintoff
Feb 25th, 2008
Seriously.. just how much money have the gullible fools in SL given this clown? He’s taken your money people.. He’s taken your Lindens, turned them into valueless “WICs” and in the meantime cashed out his dollars (your dollars.. Oh but wait – it’s only role play) and run for the hills.
Pitiful
Kathy
Feb 25th, 2008
It’s amazing with all the banks gone and the stock market closed that businesses haven’t been at all bothered. The economy has not collapsed. Where oh where could they be borrowing the capital for their businesses from?
Oh, that’s right. Nobody actually borrowed from these banks, we just put our credit cards into the system and bought the Lindens we needed. How silly of me to forget.
Jessica Holyoke
Feb 25th, 2008
To Apollo,
Essentially, the WSE is growing bigger than Second Life and does not want to be dependent on Linden Lab.
However, the value of the companies in this roleplaying game seems dependent on how those same companies perform in Second Life.
Jessica Crackyoke
Feb 25th, 2008
“The WSE is growing bigger than Second Life…”
They must have given you some of that Kool Aid. You are 100% wrong. I hope that was a joke.
SqueezeOne Pow
Feb 25th, 2008
It obviously is a game since there aren’t any major non-game consequences. When WSE was at its peak Luke could have taken all the money he had in his account(s), cashed out, then never logged on again. Dude’s in Austrailia. What is anyone (not in Austrailia) going to be able to do about it?
Just because you put real money into it doesn’t make it real or important. Look at Hollywood and Disneyland! Or better yet look at the fact pointed out in a post above that the SL “economy” as far as most “businesses” are concerned hasn’t actually been affected by any of this stuff. Not to mention the fact that a crash in SL’s “economy” won’t affect anything IRL except a few boobs that put too much real time and real money into it! Chuck E. Cheese Savings ‘n’ Loan!
Also, anyone paying attention would have known that the only good time to make any money off of WSE was right when it started. I bought a bunch of play stock in HCL when they first started. I figured the best stock is always going to be the company that owns the stock market! I also bought a little in a couple other listings just to see what would happen…but that was like L$1k total.
Then I waited a few months while they ironed out the kinks and all the morons yelled about things over the general group IM (until I just left the group because of this retard spam). Then I came back, cashed out and made a 300% profit. It would have been more if I was paying closer attention and had gone in about 2-3 weeks sooner. After that I kept about L$1k in there to play around with stocks until the gambling ban happened and everyone started freaking out. By then all those little stocks became worthless.
My only regret is that I didn’t put like L$10-15k in…but then again, the first rule of gambling and trading (same thing to me) is that you never put any more in that you’re willing to lose!
shockwave yareach
Feb 25th, 2008
Anyone who gives this shyster or anyone else “playing” at being stock brokers, deserves to. If he wants to play, then let him play with his own fake money and leave everyone elses alone. Nobody pays any of the rest of us to enjoy ourselves in SL. Why should anyone pay him?
SqueezeYou Pow
Feb 25th, 2008
Wow, what impressive trading abilities, Soros. What is the purpose of this lengthy comment other than to pat yourself on the back for making the equivalent of a few McDonalds happy meals?
Razrcut Brooks
Feb 25th, 2008
“Today, I am announcing the opening of the Second Life Lotto Powerball. Please send me your Lindens and I will convert them to Clams. Clams are fictional lotto game tokens. These Clams will allow you to purchase a ticket in which you select 6 numbers. I have a scripted Lotto machine (thanks D3adly!!) which will generate a weekly winning ticket! Good luck! Join now to win your Clams! You can trust me, even though my business is NOT regulated by anyone in RL. ”
Yeah right! Folks, spend your Lindens on hair and meditation cushions. Be wary of giving them to players.
SqueezeOne Pow
Feb 25th, 2008
@SqueezeYou:
What’s the point of any of this?
Montana Corleone
Feb 29th, 2008
He missed out one big thing: how exactly, when everything is now in WICs, will new IPOs get their Lindens in SL? Do they get the IPO money in WICS (pay a fee), send to PP (pay a fee) then convert them to L$ on a currency exchange (pay yet another fee)?
And he’s rather assuming that LL will let him stay, when the only link now is SL “companies” or should I say individual avatar accounts, since all the financial side is external to SL…
There was zero regulation or transparency before. At the first whiff of some sort of regulation – abracadabra – the money is hived off.
Of course, now the WIC is automagically 265 times more than it was the day before, it should make the turnover numbers look blingtastic. :-O