501derful.org
As you all know we held a Relay For Life in Second Life
last weekend and we raised about $4,650.00 in the virtual environment
and $5,750.00 overall to benefit the American Cancer Society. To
transfer that money out of the virtual world we sold the virtual
currency through Gaming Open Market who specialize in exchange these virtual currencies.
Like in any market price points are set on supply and demand, and
when one makes a drastic shift it impacts the market price. As we
collected Linden dollars "L$" (the virtual currency of Second Life) we
immediately had them sold on the market at market price. Over a very
short period of time supply of Lindens outpaced demand and the exchange
rates fell. In a sense by releasing that much currency into the market
we devalued it from about $3.67 USD per L$1,000.00 to about $3.52 per
L$1,000.00. This is a devaluation of 4.08%.
This was an unforeseen consequence and something we feel terrible
about. Clearly removing that vast amount of currency form a small
economy will have an adverse effect on the currency price, we just did
not know how much of an impact. Next year we must take more care to
extract the currency in a more socially responsible way to help
maintain a steady market price, prevent currency speculation, and maximize the dollar donation to the Society.
