There has been so much transferring and bullshit going on with Ginko Financials, I don’t even know where to begin anymore to try to explain what happened. The most recent activity has seen the CEO say he can’t make the interest payments anymore, and he has transferred everything to the aptly named WTF, or WSE Traders Fund, and is washing his hands of it.

I also thought I could do partial liquidations and use the money to lower our debt proportionally. However, first with the ban on buying bonds for less than the face value and later with the gradual erosion of our investments, both of these things ceased to be possible and my position became even weaker than it was when I created the bonds. The
fact is, there is no way for me to meet this quarter’s interest payment. Neither of our main in-world investments got off the ground (BNT and HCL), though they may still do so sometime in the future. The stocks are too weak to be sold to help meet this quarter’s interest payment. The L$2,400,000 we have inside Allenvest, despite Allen’s lie about me having withdrawn everything, are locked and probably lost forever.

The situation is such that I am left with no choice here. The bonds need
to be converted to a fund, which will hold these assets. Namely, the WSE Traders Fund (WTF) already listed on the WSE. Interest payments are no longer part of the equation and as I am transferring the assets to Luke, I will no longer be involved with anything regarding Ginko Financial as it will no longer exist. Assets previously held by Ginko Financial are being
transferred to the WTF. Source: Ginko Perpetual Bonds Important Announcement

The SLNN in an aptly titled article, Ginko CEO Escapes, I say aptly named because it is in a folder called bank robber, check the url when you get there.

Today, Ginko Bank CEO Nicholas Portocarrero posted a statement on the World Stock Exchange Web site saying he will not be paying any interest on bonds, allowing himself a back door to escape with $750,000 USD.

But Saturday, Portocarrero said he could not pay interest on the bonds and pinned partial blame on actions taken by banker Investor Allen, and the weak face value of his bonds. Source: Ginko CEO Escapes!

There is still a little bit of hope however, as Shaun Altman, majority bondholder of Ginko Perpetual Bonds (GPB) is taking it upon himself to see to the equitable liquidation of GPB’s current asset’s and to the timely compensation of all bondholders.

I will be charging nothing for my liquidation trust service. I believe that GPB bondholders have been through enough at this point, and have a right to recover as much as they can from this fiasco. Being the person with the most GPB bonds, as well as a neutral third party to asset holders, makes me the right person to handle this liquidation. The ball is already rolling, so I ask that all bondholders recognize this, and recognize that I am working in all of our best interest. I hope that it makes you happy to know that someone is finally working in YOUR best interest for the first time in a long time. I hope that I will be able to recover a sizable portion of GPB’s assets for distribution to all of us, but I can’t make any promises. Source: Ginko Perpetual Bond Liquidation Plan

Check that post for the exact way he plans to carry out the liquidation and distribution of the GPB assets. Let his be a lesson for everyone, if the bank is not backed by money to start with, then you are gambling with your lindens and we know how the Lindens feel about gambling.

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In a post from Zee Linden today, the Lindens try to once again state that they have no plans to regulate Second Life banks, and that if it seems to good to be true, like Ginko Financial was, then it probably is. Until some regulations on banking and the stock exchanges are put into place that can hold people accountable for theft, fraud, etc, then I would keep my lindens in my virtual pocket, or transfer some out occasionally so too much doesn’t build up. If you put it in a bank, you are on your own as far as they are concerned.

It is important here to distinguish between real-world banks and the “virtual banking” services that some people are trying to develop in Second Life. From a simple perspective, banks exist in the real world so you have a place more convenient than your mattress in which to store your cash. Banks in the real world attract capital by offering to pay an interest rate. They then turn around and try to lend that capital to worthy borrowers earning money on the spread between the interest they pay and the interest they earn. Because Linden Lab holds everyone’s L$ as a database entry in each account, virtual banks don’t offer a superior “storage” alternative.

Probably the most important point is that real-world banks are regulated by real-world laws. Linden Lab does not intend to recreate or subvert real-world laws in any way. We are not aware of any institutions in Second Life that are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or similar governmental agencies in other countries. We caution our residents to be wary of anyone offering extremely high interest rates at no risk, either in the real world or in Second Life — if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Source: The Second Life Economy

He also discusses the Linden, the Second Life virtual economy and inflation, and some of the sinks they use to drain some lindens back out. (i.e. how we pay for our stuff in-world).

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Nobody Fugazi is still all over the Ginko Financial closing and subsequent problems, such as depositors funds being transferred to the GPB, or Ginko Perpetual Bonds, at the WSE with no say or choice in the matter, heck they didn’t even get a shot at agreeing to the terms of service. So, if you did not have an account there, you had to create one, then sell them for less money than you ended up having in them, minus fees, but not only that, when you sell them some are converted to WIC’s, or World Internet Currency, which were originally created to allow people outside of Second Life to invest in Second Life companies. So, then he had to convert them to lindens and pay another fee. He sold 183,000 GPB and had 560 lindens in his account and 130.37 of these WICs, so, needless to say, he did not get the return on his investment that Ginko said he would and since he didn’t say how much he really received after selling, we may never know how badly he was screwed.

What I did not expect was to see a Linden balance of 560 Linden dollars for my shares? What the? Then I saw this ‘WIC balance’ that didn’t tell me what I could do with it. I didn’t ask for these dumb WIC whatever’s, I was just selling GPB so that I could cash out the Linden dollars. Why couldn’t I just get Linden dollars? So I tried the World Internet Currency ATM link, and it was asking me for my WIC account name. I try ‘Nobody Fugazi’. Not happening. I try it lower case. Not happening. After a lot of searching he found this:

WICS to Linden Dollars

You can buy Linden Dollars using your WICS by visiting the WIC Exchange ATM located at Hope Capital Island in Second Life. For a direct teleport please visit the ATM Locations page in the Education Centre.

USING THE FICTIONAL WORLD INTERNET CURRENCY IS SUBJECT TO THE TERMS OF SERVICE BY WIC EXCHANGE PTY. LTD LOCATED AT WWW.WICEXCHANGE.COM

What should have taken me about 2 minutes to do took me about 45 minutes to do. Why? Is this something which is supposed to garner good faith? If so, it is as misdirected as just about anything else I can find.

As far as I’m concerned, any fees I paid WSE or wicexchange.com were stolen. The sign over WSE should say, “Here There Be Muggers, Pickpockets and All Manner of Thieves”. I was mugged, and other people have been and will continue to be mugged either by incompetence or a complete lack of ethics. Right now, I think it could be both. Source: How WSE Is Screwing GPB Holders Even More

More info on the WIC’s here.

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Ginko Financial DOSL (Dead on Second Life) as of August 8th at 7:30 pm sl time. Lots of coverage online.

Jitters in Second Life as bank shuts doors The biggest bank in the virtual world of Second Life has closed its doors after a run on its deposits, putting at risk hundred of thousands of real dollars of savings and investments.

On Thursday, Ginko Financial - which is owned by Brazilian from Sao Paulo whose real name is Andre Sanchez - stopped accepting deposits, froze all withdrawals and converted account holders’ balances into “tradeable debt securities” called Ginko Perpetual Bonds.

Unable to pay depositors, Ginko ceases banking operations “Customers will receive one bond with a face value of L$1 for every L$1 they have deposited in Ginko Financial,” said Chief Executive Nicholas Portocarrero (real life: Andre Sanchez of San Paolo, Brazil) in a statement. “Each Ginko Perpetual Bond will yield L$0.03 or 3% of face value per quarter.”

The security was trading at about a quarter of its face value at 7:20 am Pacific on Thursday. When the bank ceased operations, it had about L$50,000,000 queued up for withdrawal.

Ginko Financial finally dead Nicholas Porocarrero finishes the letter with the comment:
“Ginko Financial will bounce back from this and if you stick with us, you wll not lose anything. If you must sell the bonds, then you must sell, but I advise against accepting low prices.”

Whilst I continue to maintain you should make your own choices about what you do with your own money, I’ve been fairly forthright in my attitude towards stock exchanges, so whilst I continue to wish Nicholas all the best, I, for one, will be selling, and if it hurts my pocket, well so be it.

Serious Questions: WSE and Ginko Financial Before the Ginko Financial uproar which has taken the spotlight - even with it closed - I was focusing on the World Stock Exchange (WSE) and some of the problems related to it. Oddly enough, the involuntary transfer of Ginko’s clients assets into Ginko Perpetual Bonds has gotten me right back where I started. Further, after I pulled investment from WSE - Ginko, which is linked to the WSE through Hope Capital, tossed me right back. Well, here I am - about $183,300L of me. And I’m small potatoes - some of the numbers I’ve had people confide in me are certainly worth a few calls to a lawyer.

Making Second Life More Viable for Investment As I wrote before, the community needs to take steps forward. These steps, as I wrote, include these demands:

• We want better investment or we will not invest.

• We want more transparency or we will not invest.
• We want more realistic expectations on our investments
• We want better policy from Linden Lab when it comes to these things.

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Ginko Financials is apparently experiencing a run on their bank, meaning everyone wants their lindens out of there, and who can blame them with all of the shady stuff that appears to be going on in the unregulated world of Second Life finance. What can be going on there that they still offer a .10 daily interest rate, which works out to about 44% interest for the year, a pretty good return no matter what the currency is, as a matter of fact it’s still too good to be true. Ginko’s interest rates have always been high, and most banks in SL appear to be offering rates that are too good to be true. So, combine the theft at the WSE, the problems with Ginko and the fact that lindens are not backed by anything and are pumped into Second Life at the discretion of the Lindens, and we have a recipe for disaster, and this recipe is about done. Check out the notice posted in the Ginko Financials website, I have pasted the relevant parts below.

About a week and a half ago, we saw an increased number of withdrawals; the time to speculate as to why this happened has since come and gone, so I will leave it at that. No matter what started it, the result is the same: We have expended every possible short-term resource, and are still unable to meet the current demand for funds. We have attempted several different things to remedy the situation (which is in short why the interest rates and limits have fluctuated wildly), but none of them turned into a viable permanent solution.

For the time being, we have decided to continue doing business normally, but leaving the withdrawal queue in place with an expanded L$1,000,000/day limit, to give an indication as to where the end of this situation may be. However, a realistic estimate could possibly extend in to the realm of several months.

For those of you who wish to withdraw your funds, you may wait in the queue, or cash out to Ginko Perpetual Bonds, which is currently the only option if you don’t wish to wait the seemingly indefinite period of time it could take to refill the reserves. Source: Ginko Financials

So, they are taking deposits still and they are then paying those deposits out to existing customers who are trying to get their money back. How is this possible and how can they “look” their new customers in the avatar and feel good about letting them think they are actually going to be able to get their money out. I read somewhere that they just kept a little bit of the lindens on hand and invested the rest, what happened to all of the money they took from depositors in good faith? Why have they not liquidated all of their holdings to pay back their customers? A post at your2ndplace, a great blog that has been on top of this the whole way, asks this question.

A Coincidence?

But there is something in common with HCL, GPB and GCS. Nicholas Portocarrero is the major shareholder in HCL - which, by proxy, puts him heavily invested in WSE. And guess who is listed on GCS and GPB as a Non-Executive Director? Lukeconnell Vandeverre, the CEO of HCL.

Is it a coincidence that these two names have been coming up a lot in the timeline since the WSE was ‘hacked’? Doesn’t it seem odd that when Nicholas Portocarrero is having trouble raising enough money to handle withdrawals that he would be investing in Hope Capital?

What’s going on here? I’m not saying anything - but there are the facts right there. How do we explain these facts? Source: Peering Into The Depths of Ginko Financial

Many have said that what Ginko is doing is illegal and most certainly fraud, and it certainly appears that way to me, taking one persons money in good faith and passing it right out the ATM into someone’s hands who are trying to get out of this mess. Benjamin Duranske of Virtually Blind.com has a huge post about the Ginko Financials troubles here, Commentary: Ginko Wrapup - No AVIX, IPO, or Funds and he says this won’t be over until someone is in jail.

If what you were saying was true, then they would close down deposits. What this indicates, to me is two things. 1) at some core level, they actually believe this might magically still work, and 2) they are hoping that as long as they leave it running, they won’t be prosecuted or sued.

But leaving deposits open when they go DIRECTLY from the depositor to the pocket of a previous depositor is so transparently criminal that I can’t even give them much credit for #1 any more, and I’ve been someone who has consistently said they bought their own nonsense, even as one of the loudest critics of their facially illegal methods.

Think about this — they knew how much money they had five days ago when they were offering 148% interest on 30 day term deposits. You think they’ll be paying those in, now, 25 days? Every penny that they take right now saying it’s a deposit that will earn interest is undeniably fraudulently received. Source: It doesn’t count for anything…

I wonder how the Lindens think their no banking policy because we don’t want to make everything complicated is working out now?

Added: Ginko Financials shutting down And Ginko Financial Closes It’s Doors (Updated:10:06 pm SLT - Now Official).

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