Sunbeamers Reach One Million Lindens, Hit Emerald

 

 

Yesterday, Saturday April 11 just before 8PM SL time, Cynthia Farshore announced Team Sunbeamers had crossed the one million Linden mark in total donations for the 2026 Relay season, and reached Emerald Level fundraising.

 

Congrats yall we got Emerald
Sat, Apr 11 2026 7:57:57 PM SLT

that last push on the stage got us just across the line at L$ 1,000,523 to make Emerald!

 

As the picture shows, about 910,000 Lindens were raised inworld, but a total of $363.75 or 90,000 Linden dollars, had been raised outside of Second Life, for a combined total of a little more than a million. This makes the team seventh out of 168 teams in terms of fundraising.

 

And "the little team that could" does it again.

 

More on the Relaystock later,

 

Bixyl Shuftan 

 

EOTB: "Dash For Cash"

 Yesterday Linden Lab announced what they called the latest of their "Linden Reward Streaks," mini-events to encourage people to use the mobile viewer, the "Dash For Cash." 

Exciting news! We’re taking our Linden Reward Streaks to the next level with Dash for Cash – an all-new additional way to earn Linden Dollars on Second Life Mobile. Throughout the month of April, subscribers can continue to log in to claim Linden Reward Streaks to earn free L$ daily - but now there are even more L$ than ever up for grabs!

In order to take part, one needs to be using the latest version of the viewer. You also need to have your phone set to accept notifications. You then wait for the Lab to send you a notification, "Not everyone will get the same offer at the same time and L$ award amounts will vary – but everyone can expect multiple reward opportunities throughout the month!"

For more info, check the Linden blog.

 

"March Mobile Millions" Offers Residents a Chance At One Million Linden Dollars

 

Even though it takes roughly 250 Lindens to equal one US dollar, a lot of them adds up to some good money. A million Linden dollars is about $4,000, which is a lot of money to most every resident. And this is the top prize for Linden Lab's latest contest, "March Mobile Millions," which offers residents a chance to win some big money. 

 

Get ready for an exciting month-long celebration with March Mobile Millions! Throughout the month of March, we’re giving you the chance to win Linden Dollar prizes and an exclusive VIP inworld experience! 

To take part requires logging in to Second Life through the mobile viewer.every day and complete a challenge for the particular week. For instance, the challenge for week one is to teleport to three different places in the Destination Guide (ends March 10). Each day, one resident who's done the challenges will be selected to get a ticket to enter a secret location for a "VIP Spin and Win" event. This event takes place once a week, streamed live on the Second Life Youtube channel, and ticketholders get a chance to spin the "Megawheel" "for massive Linden dollar prizes." As stated players can win up to a million Linden dollars. 

The wheel has 48 slots and offers the following:

• L$10,000 (15 slots) – approx. $40 USD
• L$20,000 (12 slots) – approx. $80 USD
• L$50,000 (10 slots) – approx. $200 USD
• L$100,000 (5 slots) – approx. $400 USD
• L$200,000 (3 slots) – approx. $800 USD
• L$300,000 (2 slots) – approx. $1,200 USD
• L$1,000,000 (1 slot) – approx. $4,000 USD

 Winners are of course responsible for any taxes and fees.

To read the blog post in full, Click Here. 

Bixyl Shuftan

Tilia Changes Terms of Service

 

 

For those who have yet to buy or sell Linden dollars in the past few days, you may want to be prepared to read some fine print. There have been a few changes in the Terms of Service of Tilia, the platform which handles purchases and sales of Linden Dollars for real-world currency. 

 

 In a thread in the SL forums, Tjay Wicken explained the differences, "Brought to you with the help of Claude AI."

• Effective Date:
  • Old version: November 20, 2023
  • New version: July 29, 2024
• Section 9.2 Termination for Cause:
  • Old version: Included a paragraph about providing notice and reasons for refusal of transactions, and procedures for correcting errors.
  • New version: This paragraph has been removed entirely.
• Section 9.3 Termination for Convenience:
  • Old version: Included a paragraph about lifting suspensions and completing transactions once reasons for refusal no longer exist.
  • New version: This paragraph has been removed entirely.
• Section 9.5 Termination - General:
  • Old version: The paragraph about re-completing identity verification procedures was in the middle of the section.
  • New version: This paragraph is now at the end of the section.
• Section 12.4 Limited Liability:
  • Old version: Mentioned "service Publishers" in the list of parties not liable for certain types of losses.
  • New version: The term has been corrected to "service providers".
• Section 13.1 Notifications of Dispute:
  • Old version: The mailing address for dispute notices was "Tilia Inc., 548 Market St. PMB 59201, San Francisco, California 94104-5401 US".
  • New version: The company name has changed from "Tilia Inc." to "Tilia LLC" in the mailing address.
• Throughout the document:
  • Old version: Referred to the company as "Tilia Inc." in several places.
  • New version: All instances of "Tilia Inc." have been changed to "Tilia LLC".
    

Edit: To sum it up (my interpretation):

1) Before they had to give you notice and reason for refusing a transaction and tell you how to fix it. Now they no longer need to.

2) Prior to the change, they had to lift your account suspension and attempt to complete the transaction once reasons for refusal had been remediated by you, but as they no longer need to notify you, they no longer have to attempt completing the transaction again either.

3) Moved a paragraph around, corrected typos as well as changing to Tilia LLC from Tilia Inc.

 Tilia was created by Linden Lab several years ago, but sold in April this year.

 

Premium and Premium Plus Stipends Delayed

 

One of the perks about Premium and Premium plus is the monthly stipends, or allowance, of Lindens from the Lab. But according to the Grid Status Report, there's been a slight delay.

 

  Investigating - We are aware of an issue where weekly stipend payments to Premium and Premium Plus members may have been delayed. We are currently investigating the issue. Please keep an eye on this blog for any updates.

 

Hopefully this will be resolved soon.

Animal Crossing Sim of Retroville

 

Many readers are likely familiar with "Animal Crossing," an open-ended game by Nintendo that's gotten several sequels over the years. Recently the Newser found out about a place in Second Life that's modeled off it: Retroville. So how did Retroville come about and what can one do there?

Read more in Places.
 

Free Lindens At The Fallout Shelter

 

For those dropping by the Fallout Shelter on Sundays, something new has been added. This weekend, Rebel Wolf announced a raffle that would give a prize to a random winner, if they were part of the sim group or not.

The Insane Wolf is trying something new..He has a raffle gas pump in the Fallout Factory ( dance hall) In theory anyone can click on to enter, and win $200 on Sunday night. Non group members can even enter right now. The prize may increase if there is any interest. But I'm very cheap. Sue Me. Come one come all. Bring your alts! It should work..maybe...hopefully...

Rebel Wolf would tell me, "If there is any interest by the draw Sunday night at or after dance, I may increase the prize to 1000 a  week, group members only, but for now its open to all. ... Don't gotta be here to win. ... If it gets a lotof interest, it stays, and robs me blind with a increase in Lindens to give away. So! Donate to the Deadlands donation barrell, so I can give it away."

The Fallut Shelter is in th Deadlands,in Paradise Kingdom (87/37/22) (follow the road).

Bixyl Shuftan
 

Team Sunbeamers Hit One Million Linden Mark

 Right on the Relay Weekend, the Sunbeamer team achieved something it had never done before. Since reaching Sapphire rank, the team continued to get donations. And in the past couple days, over 200,000 Lindens came in. Finally at 8:27PM, the amount of money went over the one million Linden dollar amount ($4000 USD). 

[20:26] Rita Mariner: SUNBEAMERS  L$: 823,099
USD: $3,292.40  L$: 178,045
USD: $712.18  L$: 1,001,144
USD: $4,004.58
[20:27] Rita Mariner: WE are now EMERALD

The Sunbeamers reached Emerald level three years ago, but it took less money to do so. This is an amount that hasn't been seen since the days of it's predecessor team, the Passionate Redheads. 

Out of 149 teams, the Sunbeamers rank number 12. 

"The little team that could" has done it once more.

Bixyl Shuftan
 

Linden Lab To Change Fees For Buying Linden Dollars, Price Increases For Some

    

For those whom buy Linden dollars in larger amounts, you will soon be paying more. A few days ago, Linden Lab announced that starting Thursday April 22, it will change the way it charges people for buying it's virtual currency for Second Life. Instead of a flat fee for any amount, they'll be charging a percentage with the old fee as the minimum.

Effective April 22, the current flat buy fee rate of $1.49 will be replaced by a 7.5% buy fee (capped at $9.99) applied to the total amount of Linden Dollars purchased in each transaction. The $1.49 minimum still applies. 

So what does this mean? If you buy Linden dollars in amounts of $20 or less, nothing really changes. But buying more than that, you'll be paying more. For instance, someone buying $30 USD worth of Lindens, assuming an exchange rate of 250 Linden dollars for one US dollar, will be charged 7.5% of $30 extra, or $2.25, and so pay a total of $32.25 instead of $31.49. This is an increase of 76 cents. For $50 USD, the fee is $3.75, and paying $53.75, an increase of $2.26.

Linden Lab would explain it was trying to manage having to deal with expenses, such as "Investing in our infrastructure to further improve speed and cadence of update" and "Developing new marketing initiatives and entertainment partnerships to fuel growth,"and wanted to "manage these costs in a way that minimizes the overall burden on our Residents." While it was going ahead and taking some loss, the Lab stated they needed a way to make up part of the expenses.

The fee for buying Lindens last went up in June 2018, from 99 cents. It was the second increase in less than a year, in Novemeber 2017 going up from 60 cents to 99 cents, and in June 2017 going up from 40 cents to 60 cents. Part of the reasons for these increases were the reductions in sim tier charged to residents.

The fee for selling Linden dollars, which is 3.5%, remains unchanged. 

A thread was created in the Second Life forums about the topic, which as of the writing of this article is sixteen pages long. Checking the first few, a few residents complained, "LL are digging their own grave by raising the fee." But most seemed more open to explanations and reserved in their criticism, "It is all a matter of take it or leave it in the end. If you are not satisfied you take your business elsewhere. That is the normal procedure everywhere."
 
Source: Linden blog

Bixyl Shuftan
   

Linden Dollar Prize Payments in Linden Games Cut in Half

 

At the interview with the Linden Moles at the RFL Home and Garden last Friday, there were a few issues discussed. Among them was a question from the audience, asking why the Linden dollar cash prizes awarded for winning three games created by the Lab via the Moles, Linden Realms, Paleoquest, and New Horizons, were cut in half? She wondered if this was a sign the games were about to be shut down.

Patch Linden agreed to answer, "No they are not gong away. I'll just be transparent about this." He stated there was "some level of abuse happening, some people taking advantage of how the games operate. And despite our clear warnings in place and otherwise, they were not heeding the advice to chill out, calm down, stop abusing it. And so we're starting to escalate measures on slowing that role. So if you are using any sort of programatic ways to get around the various anti-cheat devices in the games or botting or using any kind of software automation, which is forbidden in the rules. We will not only come after you and terminate your accounts, we will also start to cut the games down.

"I'm not going to close the games. That's certainly not on the agenda. But I will devalue them to the point it doesn't make sense for people to want to game them ..."

Saffia responded, "I think that's a real shame that people have been gaming them." She then brought up someone suggested, "they should be sent to the cornfield." Patch commented, "You could do that too."

So it seems of of the perks of these three Lidnen games, the Linden dollar cash prizes, will be reduced. How it will effect how many residents play has yet to be determined.

Click Here to go to the moment in the video the question was asked. 

Bixyl Shuftan

Looking Back: The Podex Exchange

As the Newser looks back in it's eight years of covering the news, we take a look at the first and longest-running of the cash sponsors who helped us along the way: The Podex Exchange. Owned by Jacek Shuftan, this Linden dollar exchanger bought and sold Lindens for various real-life currencies, many residents finding them much more convenient than the official Lindex. Unfortunately, changes in Linden Lab's Terms of Service would put them out of business.

Read the story in Extra.

Transaction History For Premium Members Extended To 90 Days

Linden Lab is offering another small perk for those with paying accounts. Earlier this week, they announced that they were extending the Transaction history of Premium accounts to ninety days. This is three times that of regular accounts.

The change is aimed at merchants in the virtual world, Linden Lab giving some statistics.

There’s a ton of activity in Second Life’s L$ economy: every day, the Marketplace alone sees more than 20,000 unique buyers purchasing more than L$16,000,000 worth of goods from more than 15,000 unique sellers. That’s a whole lotta Lindens changing hands! And that’s not even including inworld transactions. With all that activity, transaction history can be a handy reference for shoppers and merchants alike for bookkeeping, providing customer support, or just keeping track of your own purchases and L$ spending.

These figures give some idea of how much Linden Lab makes from its cut on Marketplace sales. Inara Pey estimated with a five percent fee, the Lab was taking in over $1,123,000 from Marketplace commerce.

It's notable this perk aimed at Second Life's merchants comes about a week after Linden Lab announced it was raising fees to buy, and later sell, Linden dollars, which was criticized as an attack on "those who work to create the SL economy." So the move could be seen as an attempt to ease any ill feelings among the virtual world's businessmen and women.

To any merchants reading the article, what do you think? Will this extension in the transaction history be useful?

Bixyl Shuftan

Breaking News: Linden Lab Orders Third-Party Linden Exchangers To Close By August

In a reversal of it's deal with third-party Linden exchange services wanting to stay in business two years ago, Linden Lab announced in it's blog that it was "Concluding the Authorized L$ Reseller Pilot Program."

In 2013, we introduced a pilot program for Authorized Linden Dollar (L$) Resellers. This pilot program was designed to give Second Life Residents additional options for purchasing Linden Dollars, particularly for those based outside the US.

Since then, we have expanded the payment options for Second Life users, and today, you can easily purchase L$ in more countries than ever before, using a credit card, PayPal, or Skrill, which supports a wide range of payment methods. We’ve found that these options support the vast majority of Second Life users, and we have therefore made the business decision to close the Authorized Linden Dollar Reseller pilot program.

We are contacting program participants directly to detail the next steps for them, and they will have approximately six weeks to sell off their L$ inventory.

As of August 1, 2015, the Authorized L$ Reseller pilot program will be closed, and the LindeX will be the only authorized place to purchase L$.

Among the Linden Exchangers is Podex, a long-term sponsor of Second Life Newser.

More details to come later on this stunning news development.

To view the announcement in full, Click Here.

Linden Lab Not Allowing Use of Linden Dollars in Other Virtual Worlds

About a week ago, Hypergrid Business reported that the virtual world Avination have announced that the transfer of Linden Dollars from Second Life to them "is no longer available, including payment for Avination regions" via ATMs in the virtual world.

“Following discussions with Linden Labs they have advised that any use of Linden Dollars in payment for currency of any other virtual world, or for external services which are not used in SecondLife is in violation of their terms of service,” stated Leonie Gaertner, an Avination spokesperson.

Daniel Voyager found a press release on the matter in his email:

Due to recent interaction with Linden Labs, we regret having to inform you that the transfer of Linden Dollars to Avination is no longer available, including the payment of your Avination sims via the Avination ATMs. Following discussions with Linden Labs they have advised that any use of Linden Dollars in payment for currency of ANY other virtual world, or for external services which are not used in SecondLife ™ is in violation of the TOS.

Avination Management has attempted to discuss this matter with Linden Labs by reiterating the importance of this option as well as trying to understand how this is a violation of TOS, but unfortunately these talks have since broken down.

Linden Labs’ Lawyers are adamant that these TOS clearly state that Linden Dollars cannot be transferred. This stance will not just affect us as at Avination but could also see far reaching consequences for other companies considering legal use of L$, including services like Shoutcast Stream Rentals and other services rendered outside of SecondLife. 

Unfortunately, for our loyal users and us this means an end to offering a fast and convenient way of exchanging Linden Dollars to C$. According to Linden Labs, users of SecondLife must cash out through LindeX before using the real currency to pay for services not rendered within SL.

We are sorry for the inconvenience this will cause you and please accept we have tried everything in our power to reach an amicable solution with Linden Labs.

Daniel Voyager called this "really bad news for the Avination community and this will effect them deeply."

Source: Hypergrid Business, Daniel Voyager's Blog