As SLinsider informs us, there is something new which can be a great step in the functioning of the metaverse. Or it can be another fraud. MetaCard is the first credit card for the microcurrency of the second life. Hopefully, it will cover other microcurrencies when the time comes.
According to the website of the FirstMeta, cards work just as any meatspace credit card. You open it with deposit of L$500 for the basic card. There is also a gold one, which will ask for your real-life credit card information. Both cards work just as RL cards do. There are even ATM's.
Thing like this can be a nice solution to one of the problems of the OpenSim. If everything goes fine, we can have the first institution who can independently deal with finances all over the metaverse.
On the other hand, we know that their position is a rather heavy one, with recent fiasco of Ginko scam. Yes, Ginko was a pyramidal scheme which smells like fraud but still… I was browsing the site gathering info for this writing and wondering what can be a proof of validity for any financial institution which operates in virtual worlds. Until I get somebody from FirstMeta for a quick talk about this, tell me what would persuade you to trust your lindens to the virtual bank?
[...] Enlace: Metacard (First Meta) Fuente: Living in the Metaverse [...]
dandellion, what’s the main difference between this, and, say, WIC ? (http://wselive.com/education/wic)
Besides the fact that this business model probably is a bigger revenue generator for its owners than WIC, or other “currency emulations”.
I can see even bigger danger with this one – while the other venues effectively suck lindens, the self-contained nature of this one would give the inflational power to its owners.
While the pictures do look cute, I do wonder whether it will solve the problems or make them worse :)
I don’t know about WIC. I’ll check it tomorrow cause I want to sleep now :)
And I will digg some more info about MetaCard tomorrow too.
Cute pictures doesn’t make a financial institution, though it is nice when they are cute. Whether it will solve the problem, be the part of solution or make things worse will depend if there i serious, talented and wise people behind. Microcurrencies is potentionally big business. We shall se who will get the idea and who will play cards right.
So you give them $500 USD, but you have a credit limit of $5000L regular/$10,000L gold, or about $35 USD, on which you’re charged 13% interest?
In other words, I couldn’t purchase a SexGen bed, let alone land, with this card?
Umm, no thank you….
Hi all, this is Tyra Fierrens, co-founder and COO of First Meta.
I’d like to clarify that you DO NOT need to deposit any money whatsoever to apply for the cards. MetaCards are free to apply. We do provide an interest-bearing MetaSavings deposit account for our card holders but there is no minimum balance required.
@Dalien Talbot:
I’ll check out WIC more before I respond to that. With regards to your concern of inflation, the MetaCard (or any of our credit products for that matter) does not cause inflation because all the L$ required to fund the cards have to be bought from LL still.
@Sophrosyne Stenvaag:
Yes you are right that the basic card has a credit limit of L$5000 and the gold card, L$10,000. We also offer the MetaCard Corporate that has a limit of L$25,000 to our merchants. We also offer extensions on the credit limit for selected customers for real estate and property purchases.
@dandellion, thanks for putting up this post. If you’d like to chat I’d be happy to meet up in world. You can add me if you like.
~Tyra Fierrens
@Tyra:maybe I misunderstood – but from what I got, the MetaCard can be used for purchases without the direct L$ involvement ? or for any unit that is present in your system, it would be backed up 1:1 by L$ ?