Latin American bloc to use new 'sucre' currency from January 1, 2010
Monday, 14 December 2009
Members of a left-wing bloc of nine Latin American nations plan to use a new currency, dubbed the sucre, for trade among themselves from January 2010.
No sucres will be printed or coined, but the virtual currency will be used to manage debts between governments while reducing reliance on the US dollar and on Washington in general.
Cuba signed an agreement yesterday to pay for a shipment of Venezuelan rice in sucres, said Rogelio Sierra, the island's deputy foreign minister.
That agreement was made even as ever cash-strapped Cuba has fallen behind on its debt to nations and multi-national corporations amid the global recession.
The Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas trade group is holding a two-day summit beginning today in the Cuban capital Havana.
The group was formed by Venezuela's self-described socialist president Hugo Chavez as an alternative to US-backed free-trade consortiums. Member nations are Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Honduras, Ecuador, Bolivia, Antigua and Barbuda, San Vincent and the Grenadines and Dominica.
Honduras remains part of the bloc despite a June coup that toppled leftist president Manuel Zelaya. Mr Zelaya's deposed foreign minister is attending the summit, but the acting government in Honduras will almost certainly not abide by any agreements made.
Mr Chavez was greeted on Friday as he arrived in Cuba by President Raul Castro. Cuba and Venezuela signed "agreements of co-operation" on 285 bilateral projects in 2010 totalling nearly £2 billion, according to Venezuelan energy minister Rafael Ramirez.
Presidents Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua and Evo Morales of Bolivia are also expected to attend the summit.
related Links ~
Latin American Bloc to Begin Using its Own Currency
LATIN AMERICAN REGIONAL CURRENCY: SUCRE
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/latin-american-bloc-to-use-new-sucre-currency-from-january-14596801.html#ixzz0bQPcbzFU
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By Ben Kuchera Last updated June 30, 2009
China outlaws virtual currency for real-world items
China has passed a new law that makes the purchase of physical goods with virtual currency illegal, but this may not have as large an effect on gold farming as it at first seems.
In a world of increasingly virtual human interactions, the idea of money is becoming more fluid than authorities find comfortable. China has officially outlawed the practice of exchanging virtual currency for real goods, and minors are no longer able to buy the virtual cash. These rules will help the government control trade in China, but they could also impact the huge gold-farming industry that exists in the country.
It's easy to understand why China has such a problem with "virtual" currency being used for so many purposes. Tencent QQ is China's most popular instant-messaging client, offering a currency called "QQ Coins" that are used for purchasing items for their online identity. This currency has become popular among the youth, and now many online stores will accept the coin as actual payment for goods or online gaming.
Using this virtual currency for real-world transactions outside of the messaging service makes it an ideal way to hide transactions, giving organized crime a potential route to launder money.
The new law makes the acceptable uses of this currency clear. "The virtual currency, which is converted into real money at a certain exchange rate, will only be allowed to trade in virtual goods and services provided by its issuer, not real goods and services," the government explained.
So will this law hurt the gold farming industry? It's hard to say at the moment, but common sense says that with so many people making so much money from the practice, the gold farming business has its own momentum that makes enforcing legislation a challenge. Minors will no longer be able to buy gold or other in-game currencies with actual money, and the selling of the in-game cash for real-world money seems to run afoul of the new rules. The loophole? Gamers could still use the gold to buy in-game items, which could then be sold to other players to be converted back into gold. That adds an extra layer of complexity for selling in-game money, but shows how easily the law can be subverted.
There are also questions raised by the new law. If prepaid cards are considered virtual currency, will gamers be asked to provide identification showing they are of legal age before buying time on their favorite games? Only currency is named in the law, meaning that virtual items or even characters can still be bought and sold. As long as there is a stable economy without too much fluctuation in prices, anything online can be used as a currency, making the language potentially vague. Gamers can make actual money by buying and selling virtual currency—sometimes even across games—which makes the very definition of currency fluid. If enough people agree that a virtual blue T-shirt is worth a certain amount of yuan, that shirt can become as good as the QQ Coins that were used to buy it, which were of course as good as cash to many retailers already.
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Virtual currency exchange to launch in 2010
Beginning in the first quarter of 2010, social sites IMVU and MyYearbook will launch a virtual currency exchange allowing users from either service to exchange currency between the sites.
Currency Connect is billed as a "cross property virtual currency exchange" system similar to how you would change U.S. dollars into euros if you were traveling in Europe. Users simply swap their currencies depending on what site they are on. Overall this is not a bad idea as I still find it surprising that users pony up real money for virtual money that can never be taken out of a specific site.
But, it does make me wonder when a bigger payments vendor, like PayPal, will get into the game and offer more of a de facto universal virtual. It's all well and good that two large-ish sites have launched this effort, but it can't be long before other social sites like Facebook join the fray. And, ultimately the site or currency with the most users is likely to be the one with the most users.
This opens up an opportunity for other sites with large user bases such as Google and Yahoo to offer a currency program. If users are already joining multiple social-networking sites, there is no doubt that they are also using search engines and instant messaging.
On the technical side, the service uses a simple set of REST APIs that implement the various checks and balances of the system. Security is maintained through tracking methods and server-to-server connections, which will initially limit how many sites can participate in the service. Again, a larger online service might have an easier time deploying a fully distributed, trusted service that didn't require point-to-point connections.
It's clear that virtual currencies have become an important part of social networking and gaming infrastructure. But, sooner or later fickle users will change their allegiances. A currency exchange offers a palatable escape method but still doesn't ever let you turn your virtual currency back into real money.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13846_3-10415702-62.html
