Crisis in Second Life financial sector deepens
By Adam Reuters
SECOND LIFE, July 31 (Reuters) - A gambling ban, insider theft at the World Stock Exchange and a bank run on Ginko Financial have combined to threaten confidence in the integrity of the Second Life financial sector.
The amount of money spent in-world each day plummeted from nearly US$2 million on Thursday, when the ban went into effect, to US$1.1 million on Tuesday (see chart, right).
The virtual world’s battered financial markets were thrown into more turmoil on Monday when Ginko Financial announced a new public offering and a plan to buy the AVIX stock exchange, all amid a severe cash shortfall at the bank.
Ginko Chief Executive Nicholas Portocarrero told a group of investors that Ginko’s public offering on the AVIX exchange would fund the purchase of AVIX itself, in a convoluted transaction that was not fully explained.
Portocarrero, who for the first time identified himself as Andre Sanchez of Sao Paulo, Brazil, is also the largest shareholder in the WSE’s parent company, Hope Capital.
After the contentious public meeting, the managers of AVIX backed away from the buyout and cancelled the IPO, leaving Ginko’s fate uncertain.
“Ginko Financial was supposed to buy one of Second Life’s stock exchanges, AVIX, using money from an IPO that was to be held on, you guessed it, AVIX,” wrote Benjamin Duranske, who has extensively covered the ongoing crisis on his Virtually Blind blog.
“It didn’t happen. Why not? Because lot of smart people who understand finance, law, and ethics showed up to explain why that wasn’t going to work and ask some very hard questions,” Duranske added. “As a direct result, Ginko no longer has an IPO on AVIX, and is, apparently left to drown on its own.”
Portocarrero said during the investor meeting that he could not predict when the bank’s funding crisis would be resolved, according to several transcripts of the event.
“I do not have an estimate as to when the liquidity crunch will end,” he said. “It is in great part, out of my control.”
