[Opensim-users] Money in OpenSim-Worlds [was: Bitcoin]

[Morgan Leigh]

I think the alternative model you suggest is the way to go.  I am sure
it could be integrated into the client while one was adding bitcoin
support. But don't have the value be stored on someone else's server.
Have the client store it and then transfer it to the server when doing
the transaction. Re trusting others, at present we 'trust' LL to keep
our Lindens safe...

Regards,

Morgan Leigh
PhD Candidate
School of Sociology and Social Work
University of Tasmania

On 7/11/2011 8:37 PM, Edmund Edgar wrote:
>> You cannot wait hours before  you can use your uploaded content, before you
>> can use the land you just bought for 0.01 bticoin etc...
> 
> Right, that's what I just said. But let me fill out a bit more detail
> of the other thing I just said.
> 
> A BitCoin transfer goes through several stages of confirmation. It's
> immediately broadcast to all nodes that are listening, but It takes up
> to an hour to be absolutely sure that user hasn't been trying to cheat
> the system by spending the same money twice. If you're prepared to
> take a slight risk that the transfer may be revoked (because the user
> managed to spend the same money twice, and the network settles on the
> version that got paid to someone else), you can accept the transaction
> without waiting for confirmation.
> 
> If you're doing a land transfer or texture upload, the sim owner (who
> is the payee in this case) probably doesn't mind taking a small risk
> that the transaction may be reversed. They're probably still much
> safer than they would be with a PayPal or Credit Card transaction,
> which can be cancelled months after it was made. And if they're
> trading money for virtual land or texture storage, they can always
> take their land back, delete your texture or just kick your avatar
> out.
> 
> But if you're dealing with a large payment from one user to another,
> you probably don't want to take that risk. (The larger the payment,
> the greater the incentive somebody has to try to double-spend.)
> Charge-backs are a big disincentive to vendors, and one that we don't
> want to bring with us.
> 
> So what you'd probably do would be something like:
> - Money transferred to a sim owner as a fee for an upload or land
> transfer would be spendable in seconds.
> - Purchases made below a certain value would go through in seconds.
> - Purchases bigger than a certain value would take an hour or so.
> (That's the average time required for 6 confirmations, which is
> considered effectively irreversible.)
> 
> Alternatively, the "hybrid" version would be that you'd keep some
> money on the server, which would give you instant transfers on the
> Linden model, but could put cash into the system when you were running
> low and have it automatically send you cash back when you reach a
> certain level. (That puts a cap on how much money the grid has to
> baby-sit.) This would be the most painless way to do this for the end
> user, especially while there's no BitCoin-ified viewer to use, but
> it's less "pure" in that it still puts a certain amount of money in
> the hands of somebody who we don't completely trust, and who doesn't
> really want to be holding it for us.
> 

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