News in Brief

 

There's a lot going on, but not so much time to write about it.

 

Of the Firestorm update we wrote about on Monday morning, it would finally be released later that afternoon. You can read details in the Firestorm blog. 

 

Almost overlooked, earlier this month Linden Lab would announce the transfer of the ownership of Tilia to Thunes was now completed.  

 

And a few days ago, Linden Lab would announce that the six months of free Madpea Unlimited was almost up.  

 

EOTB: Lab Announces Upcoming Changes "To The Financial And Billing Systems of Second Life"

 

 

A few days ago on Friday January 17, Linden Lab announced they would be making some minor changes to how residents buy and sell Linden dollars. 

 

We are introducing improvements to the financial and billing systems in Second Life in partnership with Tilia, our trusted billing provider. These upgrades aim to streamline and modernize transaction processes, ensuring a more secure and reliable platform for our community. While you may notice some visual updates when interacting with payments and payouts, the overall experience will remain familiar and seamless.

The announcement promised wallet integration, better cashier and account dashboards, faster payouts and more options for them, The updates will be released "on a rolling basis with everyone" near the end of January. This includes a different look for the screen appearance. 

There are currently no changes to the fees, but there is one less option for transactions, unless you already have it. Starting in January 30, people will no longer be able to add Skrill as a payout method, though if you already have it you can still use it. 

Also, five countries will no longer be able to have new payout connections: Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Bosnia. That Russia and Belarus can't is no surprise due to Russia being under sanctions and Belarus having close ties to it. 

For the blog post in detail, 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.

 

Lab Gab: Oberwolf Explains The Sale of Tilia

 

 

 In a special episode of Lab Gab on Friday April 26, Strawberry Linden interviewed Oberwolf Linden, the Executive Chairman of Linden Lab, about the recent announcement that Linden Lab was selling Tilia. 

So why is the Lab selling Tilia? In short, money. He explained it was "costing us millions and millions of dollars to run it." While bringing in other online places brought in some revenue, it wasn't enough to cover it's costs. So he was looking for someone to buy it, under some conditions, "The number one criteria was would they continue to support Second Life. ... That was more important than anything else I looked at. The second criteria was what could that company bring to Tilia that we could bring to Second Life." He was soon introduced to the CEO of Thunes, and in just twenty one days, "which is lightning fast and shows a few things," they were able to make a deal. It still needs Federal approval, which could take some time. 

More information is in the Youtube.

Bixyl Shuftan

 

 

Linden Lab to Sell Tilia

 

In a press release on Tuesday April 23, Thunes announced it was buying the Tilia virtual currency exchange service from Linden Lab. 

To accelerate its growth in the United States and its presence in the fast-expanding online gaming market, Thunes, a global cross-border payments company, is proud to announce that it signed a definitive agreement to acquire Tilia LLC, an all-in-one payments platform. Tilia is licensed in 48 U.S. states and territories and offers payment solutions (acceptance and pay-outs) for online games, virtual worlds, creator economies, and in-app purchases.

Upon closing of the transaction, which is subject to regulatory approvals, Thunes’ bespoke global network to accept and pay in real-time through four billion bank accounts, three billion digital wallets and 550 Alternative Payment Methods (APMs) will become available to merchants across the United States, including current Tilia customers. Using Tilia’s technology, Thunes will be able to offer Visa, MasterCard, American Express, JCB and UnionPay acceptance to Thunes’ customers.

As part of the transaction, Thunes and Linden Research, Inc. (“Linden Lab”), the current majority owner of Tilia, have agreed to an exclusive five-year partnership in which, post closing, Thunes will provide payment processing and pay-outs to Linden Lab, leveraging Thunes’ global network – allowing gamers to pay, and to receive money real-time, in a more cost-efficient way and with increased transparency.

The press release quoted Thunes' CEO  Flores de Kort, “The acquisition of Tilia demonstrates our ambition in the United States. This investment will enable us to leverage Tilia’s capabilities to provide merchants with direct money movement solutions in and out of the United States. Furthermore, Tilia’s deep expertise in online gaming, virtual worlds and token-based payments will greatly accelerate our growth into that fast-growing, exciting industry.”

Linden Lab's Executive Chairman, Brad Oberwager, was quoted as saying, “Thunes is an exceptional company that directly connects nearly every payment method and market worldwide. The combination of Tilia and Thunes will give Linden Lab’s customers more payment choices, and the ability to receive pay-outs in real time, anywhere, into the wallet or bank account of their choice. It will be business as usual for our people and our customers as we bring Tilia and Thunes together.”

 

Tilia was quietly bought by Linden Lab in 2015, but was quiet about it's purpose until 2019 when it was announced that it would be taking over currency exchanges, and people selling Lindens to buy real-life currency would have to register with it, saying this was necessary due to new Government regulations. It would also be used to buy and sell Sansar currency, which at the time was owned by Linden Lab. Eventually Sansar would be sold, but Tilia would continue to handle it's transactions, and make deals with other virtual platforms such as Upland to handle theirs. When Linden Lab was bought by the Oberwager Group in 2020, it was believed Tilia was part of what attracted them. In 2022, Linden Lab announced JP Morgan was making a "strategic investment" in Tilia. 

There is a thread in the Second Life forums about the sale it Tilia (here). Linden Lab would state, "This is good news for Second Life residents and creators. More options without additional costs. We are having an open meeting on May 20 and can discuss in detail."

 

Hat tip: Daniel Voyager

Bixyl Shuftan

EOTB : Second Life TOS To Update

 

On the official Second Life blog on Tuesday, October 25, Linden Lab announced it will soon be updating Second Life's Terms of Service. The change will take place on Monday October 31.

• We clarified certain functions associated with the LindeX as well as the terms applicable to orders placed on the LindeX.
• We added a section describing the terms applicable to your use of Stored Value Accounts, including your relationship with Tilia LLC. 

 In the  Terms of Service page, the LindeX is mentioned in Section 3.2 (scroll about halfway down the page). Stored Value Accounts and Tilia are mentioned from Sections 4.1 to 4.4 . 

Most likely, the changes have to do with the recently announced deal between Tilia and JP Morgan. They appear to be minor ones. 

A thread in the official forums has opened. A quick look showed reactions varied from worry to cautious optimism to humor. 

For the blog post, Click Here.

 

More on Linden Lab's Deal With JP Morgan And Tilia (News and Commentary)

 

 On Tuesday, Linden Lab announced that Tilia had "secured a new strategic investment from J.P. Morgan." Also, "Tilia is also working with J.P. Morgan Payments to further enhance Tilia’s current capabilities throughout its processing platform including providing increased payment and payout methods, expanding pay-out currencies and support services." So just what does this mean?

 

Well, it's a little more complicated than to just call it a deal between Linden Lab and JP Morgan.

To begin with, Tilia was created over three years ago in 2019, announced in July and going active in August. The service had been created to avoid future problems with the US Government concerning changing Linden dollars for real-world currency. At first, only those cashing out Linden dollars into real world currency had to keep it in mind. In May 2020, it was expanded to cover both the buying and selling of Linden dollars. Following Linden Lab being bought up by the Waterfield group, Tilia would be involved with not just Second Life transactions, but other places online, "virtual worlds and metaverses, online games, and NFT marketplaces" such as Upland.

So why the deal? Well, the Waterfield Network's motivations are easy to understand: quick cash in exchange for sharing further profits. In the statement from Tilia, Brad Oberwager, whose position at the service was Executive Chairman, stated, "Virtual economies represent a huge financial opportunity particularly for game, app and virtual world developers. J.P. Morgan Payments, a worldwide leader and recognized innovator in payments, is the right partner as we continue to expand capabilities in line with these rapidly growing creator-based economies."

JP Morgan's motivations? As a bank, obviously their motivation is to make money, in this case over the long term. But considering Second Life's golden age was over a decade ago, why would they be interested in this kind of deal now? In the statement from Tilia, the representative from JP Morgan stated, “We believe that contextualized commerce - such as virtual economies within games and virtual worlds - is an area perfectly positioned for innovative payments solutions to play a critical role in the coming years." He would call Tilia, "a market leading provider of software gaming payments tools, to develop solutions for these new and exciting marketplaces.”

In the Second Life forums, there was a thread with two news articles about the deal on the first page, from Forbes and Venturebeat. The Forbes article called Oberwager the acting CEO of Linden Lab. The Venturebeat one stated that Tilia would no longer be under Linden Lab, but now it's own company under the Waterfield Network. Tilia would use the money from JP Morgan "to expand its business and go into new markets." So it seems Linden Lab probably won't be getting much of the money, at least not directly. The article would say the deal took about a year to negotiate. Oberwager was quoted as saying, “They invested in us and they solidified a really big partnership. We’re like the tip of the spear for the metaverse. They’re a good partner with a lot of credibility.”

He would go on to say, “This is a good thing when creators can make money. There are people around the world who make their living by building things in Second Life. ... Here’s why I think it’s so important,” Oberwager said. “These universes are social economies. If you don’t allow people to make money, if you don’t allow this economy to happen, if you don’t support creators, you’re going to have to rely on an advertising model to make your world work. That is a disaster. That would be the worst thing that could hit our society — an advertising-based metaverse.” He felt such a virtual universe would operate on companies tracking people so they could better target ads, "That's not a world we want to live in."

There is some irony in the Tilia deal. It was a year ago that Facebook announced it was going to make a major effort into virtual worlds, saying it would become the "Metaverse," even changing it's name to Meta. It's owner Mark Zuckerberg was acting like Second Life never existed. Since then, things have not gone well for Facebook/Meta. The company has lost a LOT of money and investor confidence shaky, "some analysts say that they aren’t even sure what Facebook’s core business is anymore — or if it even has one." Horizon has also performed far short of expectations. Despite Facebook's huge base of users, a Wall Street Journal article reported the number of people using Horizon has been much smaller than Second Life, with a smaller ratio of women to men, with reports of some of the men behaving badly despite the lack of legs on avatars (while in SL about 80% of the entrepreneurs are women according to Oberwager), and most areas never being visited by anyone other than their creators.

With Horizons and Facebook/Meta faltering while Second Life is flourishing and indirectly attracting attention of the largest bank in America through Tilia, Linden Lab has proven not only can it outdo Zuckerberg with virtual worlds, but also on attracting big money investors. While "The Zuck" can pretend our virtual world doesn't exist, in private he sure can't deny we do.

Sources: Forbes, Venturebeat, Petapixel, Ryan Schulta/Wall Street Journal
 

Bixyl Shuftan

Lab Announces Deal With JP Morgan, "Strategic Investment" On Tilia

 

In the Second Life blog yesterday, Tuesday October 18, Linden Lab announced a business deal concerning JP Morgan. 

We’re excited to share with the Second Life community some news about Tilia LLC, the all-in-one payments platform that powers the metaverse. Tilia  was originally built and continues to support the Second Life economy.

Tilia today announced that it has secured a new strategic investment from J.P. Morgan Payments. In addition to the investment, Tilia is also working with J.P. Morgan Payments to further enhance Tilia’s current capabilities throughout its processing platform including providing increased payment and payout methods, expanding pay-out currencies and support services.
Read the full announcement at Tilia.io

Wikipedia lists JP Morgan as the largest bank in the United States and the largest bank in the world "by market capitalization." 

More on this story later.

Bixyl Shuftan

 

Linden Lab's Buyout Now Official, Second Life Listed As Part Of Waterfield Network

 
Almost unnoticed at the end of Linden Lab's announcement that the move of Second Life's data to Cloud servers was now complete was an announcement of another kind. When the Lab announced the agreement with a group of investors to be acquired in July, it was mentioned the deal required the approval of the US Government. At the end of Tuesday's announcement, it was stated the approval was finally granted after a review. The big reason for the approval was Linden Lab's money service Tilia.

 Another noteworthy development for the new year is that Linden Lab has new owners! As announced in mid-2020, an investment group led by Randy Waterfield and Brad Oberwager signed an agreement to acquire the company subject to regulatory approval by financial regulators in the U.S. related to Tilia Inc.’s status as a licensed money transmitter as well as other customary closing conditions. We are pleased to share that the regulatory review has been completed and Linden Lab is now under new ownership.  

On the Waterfield Holdings webpage, Second Life was listed as part of the Waterfield Network, alongside other companies such as Goldman Sachs.

And what does this mean for Second Life and it's residents? For now, not much. It was earlier stated that the investors plans were to pretty much let Linden Lab continue to run Second Life as they see fit. In this latest announcement, they hinted the investors would be sending over some money.

While the owners may be new, things are “business as usual” in Second Life. Last year saw strong growth for our virtual world and, as a result of this acquisition we expect even more resources in 2021 to further improve and grow Second Life in the future.  

Hamlet Au in New World Notes would have a few things to say on the topic. Among them, that over time Waterfield would likely send the Lab some directives over time to keep it's profit margin. This likely includes higher fees and more incentives to go Premium.

Hat Tip: Hamlet Au

Bixyl Shuftan

News In Brief

There's a lot going on in Second Life. But between the Relay, the SLB, and our upcoming anniversary, so little time to write about it. Here's a brief mention of a few things going on.


In an article in Vice magazine, Linden Lab's CEO Ebbe Altberg stated Second Life's monthly usership was close to 900,000 thousand. Ryan Schultz would point out this was a 50% increase from the days before the Coronavirus Pandemic.


There's a new Firestorm viewer out, Update 6.3.9.58205, "this one comes with a LOT of changes, bug fixes and improvements."


A few days ago, Linden Lab would announce all further US dollar transactions, not just those for cashing out Lindens to real world currency, would be handled via it's Tilia service, "to stay compliant with regulations across a number of U.S. states." Also a few days ago, the Lab announced it would be adding the Value Added Tax to transactions involving residents of Norway and Australia.


Earlier this month, Daniel Voyager reported that the Second Life app, powered by Android, was still in an "internal alpha" stage of development, "This is a communications only app, for now." There's no date as to when a public beta will be out, Ebbe Linden recommending for now the web-based Speedlight.


Yours truly was also given a tour of the CDS Catacombs, located at Colonia Nova (78,108,22). Mermaid Celene (CeleneHighwater Resident) of the Radegast Viewer group met up with me to discuss "Silver Economy," which blind SL users can take part in. After a tip from a friend about "a free downloadable board game ... based around making fun of the toilet paper shortages," I had a talk with the maker, Wanders Nowhere.


We'll have more on some of these when time permits.

Bixyl Shuftan

Eye On The Blog: "Information About Privacy and Security in Tilia"

Last Friday, Soft Linden, Linden Lab's Information Security Manager, posted in the Tools and Technology blog, "Information About Privacy and Security in Tilia."

A large number of you attended the Tilia Town Hall  last week. Aside from the many questions you had about how Tilia affects Second Life L$ and monetary activity, privacy was a common concern. Grumpity asked if I would answer a few of the questions about Tilia privacy and security which surfaced in the town hall and in our forums.

There were four sample questions and four lengthy answers.

Where did the Tilia team come from? And why should I trust Tilia with my personal information?
 

Soft answered, "The Tilia team is made up of people you previously knew as Linden Lab employees." He called the team "passionate about privacy and security," and that many had alts in Second Life and knew many of the residents there. They also promised, "the information you store with Tilia is never provided to third parties for purposes such as marketing, " and We won’t even provide that information to the US government unless we are compelled to do so through a legal process such as a subpoena or a search warrant."

 

Does Tilia change how my information is secured?
 

In short, yes. Soft stated, "Figuratively speaking, we locked the old vault inside a bigger, stronger vault." Of the 'new vault,' it "uses modern algorithms to encrypt sensitive information in a way that would require both enormous computing power and an enormous amount of memory for an attacker to crack… if they could even get a copy of the encrypted data. These algorithms are specifically tuned to defeat expensive decryption acceleration hardware." Their existing encryption technology was called "industry standard at the time."

It sounds like a lot has changed at once. Aren’t large changes risky?

Soft answered, "Tilia was designed with security and privacy as its primary considerations." They had people, "some of our key privacy and security practices and procedures," and that they pay a security company to attempt to hack into their servers to test the m.

What does Tilia mean for Second Life privacy and security in the future?

"We have many plans for Tilia," Soft stated. They are in the process of moving "additional forms of information ... Now that we have a new privacy and security foundation, we can extend the amount of information that enjoys this level of protection. If it pertains to your real life identity, we believe in leveraging Tilia protection wherever possible." It also mentioned their goals were ensuring, "compliance with upcoming privacy and security regulations."

To check the blogpost in it's entirely, Click Here.

Bixyl Shuftan

Town Hall About Tilia Today

At 1PM today, Linden Lab will be holding a Town Hall event to answer questions on the new Tilia Service. For those who can't get into the area, click on video above, or the link on SL4Live's Youtube channel.

https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Town%20Hall%20Island1/251/5/26/


While the Lab has tried to calm the confusion about the new service for Second Life residents, such as with the Town Hall meeting and a Q and A thread in the forums, this hasn't been the end of it. Activity in the "Tilia Takes Over" thread picked up following allegations Linden Lab was deleting some posts. While there were posters wondering if the Lab was simply deleting redundant questions, others felt this smelled like censorship. It would appear that whatever happens at today's event, it will not be the end of resident concerns.

Hat Tip to Oldesoul Eldemar for the Youtube link

Town Hall Event About Tilia This Friday

On Monday July 1, Linden Lab announced to the residents something called Tilia would be part of "Important Changes to your Second Life Account." The result was no shortage of confusion, residents asking how would this would affect them.

Want to learn more about Tilia, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Linden Lab? 

Second Life executives Grumpity Linden (Senior Director of Product) and Patch Linden (Senior Director of Product Operations) will be answering questions about Tilia from the community at a special “Tilia Town Hall” event held inworld this Friday, July 12 at 1 p.m. (SLT/Pacific). 

 

As announced on July 1, Tilia will soon be handling certain aspects of the Second Life service that will help us comply with U.S. laws and regulations via enhanced regulatory compliance protocols. We’ve been taking questions about Tilia in our official forum all week, so please join us as we continue to listen and respond.

 The structure is at a meeting point of four sims to accommodate a larger crowd. Still, some residents may need to adjust their Preferences on their viewers to make up for the lag. 

As stated in the announcement, the meeting will be at Town Hall Island On Friday July 12 at 1PM.

https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Town%20Hall%20Island1/251/5/26/

More on Tilia

With Linden Lab's announcement on Monday that Second Life residents would have to be signed up for accounts on their new Tilia service, there has been no shortage of discussion among the virtual world's residents. The "Tilia Takes Over" thread on the forums has reached 21 pages as of the writing of this article. Seeing the confusion, the Lab responded with a "Official Tilia Q and A Forum Thread." Among the answers to some questions heard:

There are no additional fees for having to use Tilia, aside from the Inactivity Fee.

The Inactivity Fee applies only to those whom have a US dollar balance in their account that remains inactive for 12 months or longer.

The changes for personal information requirements apply only to those who cash out Linden dollars for real world currency.

For those whom use Linden dollars only for Second Life, there is no change.

Tilia is not needed to buy Linden dollars with real world money.

Tilia will not replace Paypal, though the Lab is working on enabling it to work directly with banks in the future.

Of the reason why the Lab needs the additional personal information, they cited, "The ID verification requirement is necessary for compliance with U.S. money transmitter laws and regulations, such as the USA PATRIOT Act and the Prepaid Access Rule."

As residents continued to ask questions, the number on the FAQ has been growing. It probably will continue to do so for at least another day or two.

Tilia Needed For Second Life Accounts Starting August 1

While the Lindens gave some news of their upcoming plans during the "Meet the Lindens" events last week (many of which the Newser was hoping to describe in more detail in the next few days), there was one that wasn't mentioned: Tilia. On the Second Life blog yesterday, the Lab announced it would be part of "Important Changes to your Second Life Account."

Beginning on August 1, 2019, Tilia will take over certain aspects of the Second Life service. Tilia enables Linden Lab to continue the Second Life service in its current form through enhanced regulatory compliance protocols.  To achieve this, Tilia will assume responsibility for managing your USD denominated account, which will be referred to as your "Tilia Account."  After August 1, Tilia will handle process credit requests and payments made from your Tilia Account.

 

Effective August 1, in order to continue using Second Life you will have to agree to Tilia’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.  A Tilia Account associated with your Second Life Account will automatically be created for you and you will not need a separate username or password to access your Tilia Account.  

 

In order to stay in compliance with regulatory requirements, if you wish to process a credit, we will need certain personal information to verify your identity, including your name, address, date of birth, and social security number (or government-issued identification if you are not a U.S. Citizen).  You may be required to provide additional information to complete the transaction. Tilia will securely store this information so that you should only need to provide it once.

 

Additionally, please note that customers under 18 years of age will not be able to process credit after August 1, 2019 until they reach the age of 18. 

 

As always, Second Life remains free to access and enjoy!  However, if your Tilia Account is inactive for a period of 12 months we will charge your Tilia Account a fee to the extent permitted by applicable law.  If you have questions about the inactivity fee, please see Tilia’s Terms of Service.

What is Tilia? Linden Lab bought the company in late 2015. The name had been registered in 2002, but the business, whatever it's purpose, had shut down. When Inara Pey asked Linden Lab what it was for, the response by their Director of Global Communications was " a subsidiary of Linden Lab, focused on payments and the compliance work associated with operating virtual economies, and it will provide services for both Second Life and Project Sansar." It's also the genus name of about thirty species of trees that are sometimes called "linden trees," which may be why Linden Lab was interested in the name.

The response by the residents has been more than a little confusion, on both various Discord servers and the Second Life forums. The "Tilia Takes Over" thread has already reached 18 pages as of the writing of this article. There were a number of questions such as would people be hit with bills for not buying or selling Lindens? Was this Age Verification all over again? And there were no shortage of comments such as "Linden Labs, I am very disappointed in you. ... Some have accused you of a bait and switch over the Linden Homes and they were wrong. But inducing people to re-up for another year and then springing a change in the terms of service a week later is a true bait and switch."

While some expressed worry, others such as Becky Nosferatu stated there wasn't much for most residents to worry about. Some however would be paying more.

This took me nearly 20 minutes to figure this out. For those who are in the know, there is a new law and a new ISSUE now, involving the way Linden Lab works with real-world money.

When you buy or sell Lindens, you have a middle ground where the Lindens goes to. So think of that as your virtual wallet. This money just sits there until you cash out (send to Paypal) or your buy in (convert it to Lindens).

Now, what the above means is if you have 0.00 in that "wallet" let's call it, it will do nothing to you. You won't get any fees, you won't be charged, etc.

For people who DO cash out or in, if you have money IN that wallet, and you LEAVE IT THERE FOR A YEAR, they will count that as being inactive and start hitting you with fees. It will take from your "wallet" until you either cash it out or use it, or until your balance reaches 0.00.

Everyone, unless you are under 18, are required to pony up your valuable info IF you want to use the cash out/buy in feature to get Linden dollars. This is EXPECTED of you. As of August 1. this new system will take effect. They're already making a new account for everyone on SL.

What it also means though, if you are over 18 and want to cash out, you must offer up personal info, including your social. A ton of people are not cool with that concept, but trust me, they wouldn't ask for it if they didn't have to.

Why are they doing this? There is a new law in place that affects US and international citizens. This new law means that if you are working with crypto (virtual) currency, you CAN NOT hoard this currency for "better prices" before you cash out, because that is LAUNDERING and that is a big no-no. It's like if you get word fhe stock market is going to crash, you pullout all your funds from said stock and sell it. That, my friends, can net you prison time.

If you don't ever cash out or buy in? You don't have to worry about this at all. You are completely immune and nothing will come of it for you.

If you're like me, however, you are subject to fees when you cash out; Linden Lab's fees, and whatever Tilia's going to charge as well. Nothing we can really do about it.

Becky cited an article in Coindesk.com, referring to a statement from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

There's plenty of information and more than a little legalese to go through. But it seems Tilia being put into action isn't just for the Lab to put up more hoops for residents to jump through and another fee to pay (and maybe higher tier prices from landlords having to pass down feed imposed on them to break even). It appears Linden Lab is doing this due to wanting to avoid legal trouble from the US Government.

As Second Life has adapted technically to change to fit with the times over the past sixteen years, it seems it has to adapt to changes, or at least greater enforcement of, laws dealing with the Internet and commerce as well.

Source: Modem World, Wikipedia, Coindesk.com

Bixyl Shuftan