Insider Trading with Virtual Money
Exchanging virtual money for real money is a simple matter for Second Life residents. Simply enter the amount you wish to exchange in the LindeXtm Exchange and press the sell button. That’s it. However, you are not getting the most out of your money if this is all you do.
The Trick
Follow the next two steps to get a better deal when doing LindeXtm transactions.
Step 1) Enable advanced mode for LindeXtm
Step 2) Exchange using the best current Lindextm rates
Let’s say we are trying to sell L$100,000 Lindens.
Using the Market Sell box (the only one available in basic mode), we’ll only get $354.32 US Dollars.
Using the Limit Sell box with a 263 exchange rate, we get $366.44 US Dollars for the exact same amount of Lindens.
That’s an extra $12.12 for doing very little extra work. The difference naturally becomes more significant with more money.
But why did we pick 263 as the exchange rate? This is not a random number. It is simply the best available sell rate at the time.
Remember: The best available rate changes from time to time.
The Explanation
The exchange rate information is available directly below the Limit Sell box.
Using the best available sell rate will ensure the sale will complete nearly as instantly as using the old Market Sell box.
How the sell boxes works
LindeXtm is an auction system.
When selling Lindens, the amount entered in the Market Sell box, is automatically matched to the best Open Buy Order rate. Those rates are typically L$10/US$100 crappier than the best Open Sell Order rate.
By manually entering the best open sell rate using the Limit Sell box, the Lindens that you put up for sale will be sold quickly as long as there are people buying Lindens.
To paraphrase, you are saying
“No I don’t want to buy US dollars at the rate that’s available, but anyone who wants to buy Lindens can get it from me at the best available rate on the market.”
Obviously, the reverse of this method works just fine for people buying Lindens with US Dollar. Happy trading.
-Todd
Excellent tip, wish I had known this earlier. Great blog!! very interesting topics.
The highest available sell rate might not be the rate you want. If there is a small block of Lindens at the top rate, it might be worthwhile to put it in at the next lower rate. How long you have to wait for your sale to go through depends on how low a rate you enter, and how quickly Lindens are being processed.
I keep a graph of recent Lindex Sell Order Volume which can help you get a feel for how long a sell order will take to process. By watching the activity for a few days you will understand better the rates and times to sell your Linden Dollars.