J.P. Morgan investing in Tilia.

[animats]

• More information at VentureBeat.
• Coverage in Forbes.

Tilia is being spun off from Linden Lab and is becoming a separate company.

“It's very important virtual worlds have the instantaneous settlement Tilia provides,” said Brad Oberwager, Executive Chairman of Tilia, and acting CEO of Linden Lab. “We can handle very high transaction volume at very low dollar amount that even with USDC, the systems aren't built for that kind of stuff. We move one 250th of a dollar sometimes.”

That's a good point, Tilia can do small transactions at low cost. Nobody else does that very well. The crypto people can't do that. Banks can't do that.

J.P. Morgan, for those who don't know, is the brokerage side of Chase Bank, formerly Chase Manhattan, the biggest bank in the United States and fifth in the world. (The top 4 are all units of the Chinese government.)

"In addition to the investment, Tilia is also working with J.P. Morgan Payments to enhance its current capabilities throughout its processing platform including providing increased payment and payout methods, expanding pay-out currencies and support services."

Tilia will finally get properly plugged into the banking system. Tilia is, right now, at level 3 on payments - they have to go through PayPal or Skrill (level 2) to get to the banking system (level 1). Being hooked into J.P. Morgan should remove the need to go through PayPal and Skrill. (Although there's no reason they couldn't have been doing ACH and SEPA transactions already. Anybody with a bank account can do those.) It was kind of embarrassing for a money transfer company to be that low in the food chain. So, I'd expect that SL users will be able to convert Linden Dollars into real currencies and have them directly deposited into bank accounts.

This is probably good for Linden Lab. It removes the distraction of trying to run a financial service business on the side. Tilia, marketed by J.P. Morgan, might actually get some customers. The current customer list, unchanged for years, is Second Life, Sansar, and Upland. (Upland is a crypto operation which sells markers on maps of cities.) For J.P. Morgan, it gives them an additional service they can sell to their clients.

[Love Zhaoying]

12 minutes ago, animats said:

Tilia is being spun off from Linden Lab and is becoming a separate company.

Interesting, thought that was already the case! It wasn't emphasized in the summary provided in the blog post! (I only scanned it.)

[Sid Nagy]

Two concerns:
1. How important stays SL for the investors now they start to make money with Tillia?
Short term that won't be a big problem because SL is still Tillia's main customer.

2. Will the transaction rates go up again soon, now a second investor needs a return on their investment?

Future will tell I guess.

Edited October 18, 2022 by Sid Nagy

[diamond Marchant]

This appeared in Featured News on Tuesday morning (10/18/22)  - Tilia Secures Strategic Investment from J.P. Morgan

No mention here of spinning anything off. However, according to Forbes , Linden Research has "spun out" Tilia.

Tilia is now owned by the Waterfield Group and JP Morgan (minority interest). JP Morgan will " increase payout methods and expand the number of pay-out currencies" for Tilia.

Forbes describes Brad Oberwager as the acting CEO of Linden Lab.

What does this mean for Second Life? Don't know, haven't seen any analysis by pundits.

Speculating, it seems that Linden Lab must now stand on its own, independent of Tilia, which evidently required new investment to continue. It may be that Waterfield wants to keep the financial services business but sell off the metaversey parts. This restructuring positions them for shopping Linden Lab.

Fasten your seat belts, this may be a bumpy ride.

 

Edited October 18, 2022 by diamond Marchant
refined speculation

[Coffee Pancake]

WHAT

There is no way this is in our interest at all. Not one bit.

I guess we have payment processing fee hikes to look forward to.

Let the breathless spin commence.

[Charlotte Bartlett]

My random thoughts:

I think it will finally allow connectivity into mainstream elements as part of a digital strategy. 

Also the JPM payment model (as let's hope the investment will have connectivity from the Tilia side into the JPM network) could allow them to automate a fair chunk (no more waiting for 2-5 days for a cash out as they can use the built in functionality and automation methodology that exists today).  So cost avoidance, whilst not increasing their fraud and risk factors and basically ensuring it's a scalable model to roll out to other target markets/entities (and navigating the regulatory landscape).    It also will help them provide a payment service that is inline with competitors and normal operations in 2022 (as they are behind on that as the whole cash out model used today is antiquated to say the least).

From a Fintech space they have to compete with a 2% cost of payment (generally).   So hopefully that investment goes into elements like opportunities to cross populate with Plaid, Zelle etc as well as automated ACH etc (for the US side) leveraging JPM Payments methodology.  We pay 5% right now to cash out, so with the automation and scalability I would expect this to actually protect us from larger increases and remain more stable on the cost front.   Now I have jinxed it I am sure...

 

 

 

[Quistess Alpha]

4 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

WHAT

There is no way this is in our interest at all. Not one bit.

I'm inclined to agree, but if J.P. Morgan can push Tillia to enable payout to actual banks (I.E. anything other than Paypal+Skrill) that would be a major improvement.

[Charlotte Bartlett]

3 hours ago, animats said:

“It's very important virtual worlds have the instantaneous settlement Tilia provides,” said Brad Oberwager, Executive Chairman of Tilia, and acting CEO of Linden Lab. “We can handle very high transaction volume at very low dollar amount that even with USDC, the systems aren't built for that kind of stuff. We move one 250th of a dollar sometimes.”

That's a good point, Tilia can do small transactions at low cost. Nobody else does that very well. The crypto people can't do that. Banks can't do that.

 

What they cannot do (yet) are small transactions at high volume, at the 2% cost level, in an automated fashion with real-time settlement...
- That's where I see the interest with the JPM angle and significant opportunity for Tilia to operate in that market - then it becomes a interesting company.
- It gives them the ability to move into new and variable sectors (think areas like micro transactions for articles etc - whether you agree with that or not).
- Expanding that further open banking payments is looking to reach $116 billion globally..  

So it's a good time to solve for my first sentence as there is significant revenue opportunity for those in the race to be gained.

[Coffee Pancake]

33 minutes ago, Quistess Alpha said:

I'm inclined to agree, but if J.P. Morgan can push Tillia to enable payout to actual banks (I.E. anything other than Paypal+Skrill) that would be a major improvement.

I will never forget our wolfsome overlord expressing how Tilly was "exciting" while trying really hard to say nice things about the mess that made it possible.

It's only a matter of time before we're back on the block, they got what they wanted.

[Ceka Cianci]

I hope things work out, but it sure is starting to feel like this..

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

Tilia is growing up!

 

[Paul Hexem]

But whenever someone says "fruad and consumer protection laws". they tell me the L$ has no value. Why would JP Morgan be interested in a system that trades primarily in something that has no value?

I just can't figure it out! It must be acts of benevolence for our benefit!

[diamond Marchant]

Remember how Linden Lab had that office of whatever thing instead of a CEO (grumpity, patch, and two others). Now that Brad is acting CEO, has that gone the way of Ruth bodies?

Edited October 18, 2022 by diamond Marchant

[Silent Mistwalker]

1 hour ago, Paul Hexem said:

But whenever someone says "fruad and consumer protection laws". they tell me the L$ has no value. Why would JP Morgan be interested in a system that trades primarily in something that has no value?

I just can't figure it out! It must be acts of benevolence for our benefit!

 

https://www.tilia.io/how-tilia-works

[HeathcliffMontague]

7 hours ago, Sid Nagy said:

1. How important stays SL for the investors now they start to make money with Tillia?
Short term that won't be a big problem because SL is still Tillia's main customer.

That was my first thought. Short term it might be a good thing. Not an economist, but It've spent a huge enough chunk of my life working for large multinationals to know that in the case of larger and larger investors, often ending in takeovers, smaller entities/clients invariably drop lower and lower down the chain until they eventually drop out completely.

The last company I worked for changed hands around 5-6 times, taken over by larger players each time. We adjusted, did as we were told and kept being lucrative for a long time, and being a part of the largest multinational on the globe in our field was actually an advantage for a long time. But we were forced by global management to drop more and more clients, as they were deemed "too small".

What started out as a thriving company with a large and varied customer base (when I started), with clients ranging from  small local businesses to international companies, ended up in a situation where we basically only had clients like Microsoft, Adobe and PayPal left.  Let's hope for  the best.

[belindacarson]

Time to break out the GDPR tickets and refuse permission for the transfer of our personal data 🙂

[Coffee Pancake]

The issue with Tilly has always been that no one seems to want it.

It's been in the Unity asset store since the start of the year .. and .. 

https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/add-ons/services/billing/tilia-204307

Which is unsurprising, considering the current metaverse / gaming business model is 'the money comes in and stays in and that's the end of that'. Who in their right mind wants players "cashing out", what madness is this! It all makes for one rather obvious blind spot which leaves those holding the levers of power only one perspective; Tilly isn't a run away success, because of proximity to "sad sack sex simulator 2004", Sexand Life or whatever it's called. Ew.

Tilly gets moved out (as it's obviously the "exciting" cash cow here, obviously) and flush with cash and mad with power, a series of marketing execs will wreck havoc in the hope something will stick. We will bare the brunt of all changes, but who cares .. because Tilly (or whatever its "hip crypto" rebranding looks like) isn't SL, and SL is just a customer that can't be allowed to hold back this "exciting" adventure in legit finance (ignoring the rest of the industry staggering around off their skulls doing lines of barely legal IAP/NFT/block/chain).

From our perspective, Tilly never had any reason to exist other than LL trying to cut the cake up and cash out, as a wholly owned subsidiary there was still solid "in house" security. As a spun off company .. not so much. Although I will admit to expecting we would be "spun off" first (oh wait, nobody wants us).

This really cements the impression that that we're only ever told half the story by a corporation that absolutely really would rather be doing anything else.

 

Is SL "doing ok" ? ... because the feeling on the ground is it might not be and everyone's been told to smile.

What happens to SL if Tilly fails now ?

What's next ?

[Maryanne Solo]

Am I on target here?
In a tiny, beautiful, very little known rural hamlet, where some of my besties live..
many, many, many a mile from Sydney.....
I stopped in at the bottle shop to buy a liquor port... (I can only drink merlot & port - wines)...
The card swipe initiated the process and revealed the letters "Til".
Not "Till" as in cash register, Til as in, short for something    __mmn__👀__nmm__ <(looking over a fence)

Edited October 19, 2022 by Maryanne Solo

[Love Zhaoying]

J.P. Morgan..Chase..will I be able to pay my Chase mortgage with L$?

[Sid Nagy]

18 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

I will never forget our wolfsome overlord expressing how Tilly was "exciting" while trying really hard to say nice things about the mess that made it possible.

It's only a matter of time before we're back on the block, they got what they wanted.

Yeah, I fear the principle that hedge funds use often too. First buy a company, take out the parts that they like, sell that of or keep it for further use and then ditch the rest.
I think that Tilia was the part that the investors were really keen to get when they took LL.
Thankfully they need SL for now, because it is still the major customer. But how long will that be?

Edited October 19, 2022 by Sid Nagy

[Ceka Cianci]

Tick Tock Tick Tock..

Remember when you couldn't hear the clock?

[Akane Nacht]

Well, at least metaverse hype is still going strong!

surely we'll be ok 😅

 

[SeattleChris]

My initial reaction is "yikes." I've done business with Chase bank. They're horrible (No, seriously. Look them up). As long as they aren't in charge of things Tilia has a shot.

I'm sure this is as obvious as the nose on my face, but everything Linden Lab is doing tells me they aren't going to be around in 5 years. Maybe Second Life will be. I sure hope so. If not, well, it's just as easy to upload mesh to HyperGrid as to Second Life, and you won't have to take out a second mortgage to afford land. We could start a displaced Linden refugee sim...

Still, I'm pulling for Second Life to have a renewed future... somehow. But let's just draw the line in the sand now: sell us to Zuckerberg and it's game over.

Edited October 19, 2022 by SeattleChris
typo

[Arielle Popstar]

14 hours ago, animats said:

• More information at VentureBeat.
• Coverage in Forbes.

 

This is probably good for Linden Lab. It removes the distraction of trying to run a financial service business on the side. Tilia, marketed by J.P. Morgan, might actually get some customers. The current customer list, unchanged for years, is Second Life, Sansar, and Upland. (Upland is a crypto operation which sells markers on maps of cities.) For J.P. Morgan, it gives them an additional service they can sell to their clients.

I was struck by what Oberwager said at Venturebeat:

Quote

Oberwager said the deal took about a year to work out with J.P. Morgan Payments. During that time, Tilia made sure it could be interoperable with J.P. Morgan.

and how that coincided with the time that the Lab stopped development on a mobile viewer

https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/478587-the-lab-ending-work-on-mobile-viewers/

effectively diverging itself of any medium to long range plans for continued development in Secondlife, as in that as far as I know, there has been no other announced longer range development goal for S/L itself. How much should I trust the continuation of a platform when the company that runs it has no mid to long range plans for it and has even dropped plans it had that were longer range in nature?

 

[Love Zhaoying]

37 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

I was struck by what Oberwager said at Venturebeat:

and how that coincided with the time that the Lab stopped development on a mobile viewer

https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/478587-the-lab-ending-work-on-mobile-viewers/

effectively diverging itself of any medium to long range plans for continued development in Secondlife, as in that as far as I know, there has been no other announced longer range development goal for S/L itself. How much should I trust the continuation of a platform when the company that runs it has no mid to long range plans for it and has even dropped plans it had that were longer range in nature?

 

Coincidences do exist.