Linden Lab's banking ban announcement, two weeks on

Tomorrow, Linden Lab's Second Life ban on unregulated banks kicks in, and both banks and financial institutions that pay or charge interest must change their modes of operation or cease operating as of Midnight tonight.

ATMs must be removed (or in the cases of those that use avatars to that purpose instead of ATMs, we understand that the avatars have to cease doing their thing) – or face punitive removals and/or administrative sanctions from Linden Lab.

For two weeks we've had protests – some assuredly genuine, some apparently staged – runs on banks (a sort of game of musical chairs, where everyone hopes not to be the one left standing when the music stops), and the usual commingled mish-mash of cheering, screaming, jesting and angry outbursts that you get when... well, when anything at all changes (or, actually, when it doesn't change as well. Pakka's law holds firm, and that sort of thing is a steady susurration everywhere).

So, looking back over the last two weeks of user-to-user transactions and Lindex currency exchange data, what aggregate effect on the economy can we conclude that announcement two weeks ago had?

None at all.

Well, almost.

There has been a slight, but not really significant increase in user-to-user transactions, and ... well, that's about it.

This is not to say that there hasn't been significant personal impact on people and organizations within Second Life. Especially if you are one of the affected institutions or relied on them or lost money on them. Surely there's plenty of negative impact from that perspective, but in aggregate? Nothing much to tell.

The two weeks since the ban have seen record concurrencies, with higher usage of the virtual world than in any time previous, and there's been no sign of inflation or deflation of the Linden Dollar in that period.

Short version, after two weeks, there's been no significant aggregate impact on the economy (news which will doubtless surprise some, and anger others) – as we said, personal impact may be significant, but doesn't factor large in the economy as a whole. At least not yet.

We'll take another look in the economic figures in another week or two and see if there's more significant effects in the broader Second Life economy.