Anshe$ vs. $Linden someday?

Some April 1st drama in Second Life that appeared to be anything but an April Fool’s joke. The land baroness Anshe Chung, toted as Second Life’s richest resident, was temporarily suspended allegedly for being in arrears on tier fees to Linden Labs. The Second Life Herald was all over the situation:

Even before today’s suspension of Second Life land baron Anshe Chung’s account, SL forum-watchers had been riveted to a thread started by Anshe two days ago, entitled “Second Life Needs Stable Currency [forum registration required].” In the thread, Anshe toys with the idea of releasing her own currency if Linden Lab does not take action to stabilize the Linden. Backed by “silver Euro,” the Anshe$ would be accepted it as payment in Anshe’s vast land empire, instead of Linden dollars.

So was Anshe kicked out because of a thinly veiled threat that she might compete with her supposed Anshe$ or because she hadn’t made good on tier money with Linden Labs? It seems odd that Linden would suspend her when they ought to be able to see she has the $USD to pay … or does she? Not sure if we’ll ever find out the truth here, but it is an odd situation. One of our group members, Weirdharold, has Anshe owned land, I believe. Maybe he can weigh in on this situation with some insider knowledge?

Personally, I’d be relunctant to use currency from any third party, but if it came into Second Life and competed with the L$ as a business owner I’d have to at least consider allowing prospective customers to pay using it. I was a holdout on PayPal back in 2002, so I’d be a likely holdout on the Anshe$ if it ever even materializes.

Would you accept other than L$/$USD currency for your Second Life business products/services?

Update 10:21am SL: As I read through more of the Anshe$ SL thread I found this comment from Anshe interesting (emphasis mine):

And, no, this is not to make Anshecorp rich. If that would be the plan we would activate it today. Running such system is much work and much pain and nothing we want to do unless the L$ fails as stable currency. 1:333 would likely be the point we would be forced to go that way though.

So is Anshe targeting L$333 to $1USD? That could happen this year if the rates continue to rise. Check out the current Lindex graph which shows the spike around March 29, when the Second Life Herald reports she cashed in USD$50,000 worth of L$:

Anshe$ a reality at L$333 per $1USD?