Virtual Currency Support

You have used BillMonk to track rent, meals, and trips, but what about splitting the cost for buying that plot of virtual land in a virtual world? Well now you can!

Today we added support for virtual currencies, such as those used in massive multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft, or thriving online communities like Second Life. Why? Because these virtual worlds are producing huge and complex economic systems of their own which are tied to the real world.

You only have to do a couple of searches on the topic before uncovering a plethora of virtual currency exchanges where you can exchange hard dollars (or euros, yen, etc.), for in-game money like Lineage Adena or Everquest Platinum. Furthermore, there are lots of vendors of virtual goods selling everything from virtual land, to virtual clothing in exchange for real-world cash. In fact, the Second Life community encourages its users to become entrepreneurs in its online world, earn Second Life Dollars, and later convert them back to real money. Wow!

We’re doing this as a trial to see if BillMonk is answering an actual need for tracking debts in virtual money. If there is a lot of interest, we will add more currencies and support exchange rates for virtual currencies. At first, we’re supporting just the biggest MMORPGs and communities:

• World of Warcraft (gold)
• Lineage II (adena)
• Everquest, Everquest II (platinum)
• Second Life (linden dollar)

As always, we thank the users who requested this feature. Although we ourselves are not big gamers, this seemed like a compelling idea.

[Update 3/1] Enough people asked for Eve Online that we have added the Eve ISK.