I recently passed my first birthday in Second Life, having entered into The Grid on November 20, 2006. Shortly after entering and figuring out the basics of getting around, I noted an interesting phenomenon for a world so creative: There were no capital markets. There were some banks, and some places that would lend you funds if you had land as collateral, but nowhere (that I could find) could you find a stock or a bond.
One year later, there are six stock exchanges, a myriad of banks, insurance companies, hedge funds, and a whole realm of new devices to support them. What a difference a year makes.
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Yes, unfortunately every one of these "financial institutions" is more crooked than the next. If Linden Lab wants to keep SL viable, they need to show these con artists and criminals the door. Better yet, LL should invite the FBI's bunko squad into SL to investigate, prosecute, and imprison these scumbags who steal from the naive.
I'm not sure I follow your comment about each one being more crooked than the next. From my perspective, each new exchange requires more identity, more collateral, and more sound business plans than the next. WSE, for example, requires no RL ID verification. SLCapEx, does require this. ACE requires RL identity, and also requires that land (a major asset) be held under the BNT name so that they can repossess it for the shareholders if need be. Since WSE came before SLCapEx which came before ACE, it appears to me that the exchanges are improving, not getting worse.
Also, the FBI thing won't work for two of the exchanges because they're internationally-based (WSE, from Australia, and VSTEX, from Italy, I believe).
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