Second Life’s virtual economy and the ability to process Linden dollar credits for real money on the LindeX exchange has long been a powerful and important aspect of the virtual world, and last year alone, users processed credits amounting to $60 million (USD) from the Second Life economy. The opportunity to turn virtual creativity into real profits creates a virtuous circle - it provides a financial incentive for creators to provide high quality goods and services, which add incredible richness to the virtual world for all to enjoy.
 
Underlying SL’s successful user-to-user L$ economy and the ability to buy and sell L$’s for real currency is a significant amount of ongoing work to ensure that everything remains compliant with applicable laws and regulations, while also preventing fraud and money laundering. 
 
Investing in improvements to these processes and the ongoing compliance work required comes at a cost to Linden Lab, and we will be making some LindeX fee adjustments in order to share a portion of those costs with Residents active in the SL economy.

The changes are as follows:

• The fee for purchasing L$ on the LindeX will increase from $0.40 (USD) to $0.60 (USD) per transaction
• The fee structure for process credit transactions (i.e. paying real money into PayPal or Skrill accounts) will remain as a 1.5% fee with a $3 (USD) minimum, but the maximum fee per transaction will increase from $15 (USD) to $25 (USD).

These fee adjustments will be effective as of June 19, 2017.