Virtual Banking Banned as of January 22nd

The extent to which Second Life has reached the online community looks troubling to me, and if I were to be in charge of anything at all related to it, I would most likely shut the whole project down. You know, the usual "why go to work with your avatar and do what you do in the real life anyway" kind of issue that you might have heard others have.

Trust is a valuable good in real life and, because of that, the surge of emotions from actual people into accounts looks to me like a big piece of sh*t. The trust needed to let an online bank to take care of your money is too much to give away just by looking at a document. That is not to mention that the banks in Second Life are running under questionable legality under the law and not to remind everyone about the Ginko Financial failure that deprived its depositors of 200 million Linden dollars (approximately 750,000 US bucks) when it declared itself insolvent in August 2007.

Ken Linden has decided to take action against banking and associated services, who have become very popular over the last two years because of the ponzi style interest schemes that sounded too good to be true. Ken noted in a blog post that he did not have the means to provide protection to Second Life users, after receiving multiple complaints from SL residents scammed by bank operators. This announcement will most likely have all bank customers going to the withdrawal booths and that might prove disastrous, for obvious reasons. Just check out the screenshot Duncan Riley, of TechCrunch.com, captured of the JT Financial crisis meeting related to the topic.

The list of bans from Second Life now welcomes banking among bestiality and gambling.