3pointD.com

The virtual world known as Entropia Universe announced last May that ATM cards would be made available that would allow members to withdraw their in-world currency as hard cash at real-world ATMs. (Entropia’s PED currency is fixed at 10 to the US dollar.) Now comes the news that the bank that had backed that service will no longer be supported by MasterCard, effectively shutting down the ATM project for the moment. The Financial Institutions Commission of British Columbia reportedly called the bank a “rogue financial institution” having “shown complete disregard for the laws of British Columbia.” It’s impossible to tell whether Entropia picked a lame horse or the Commission took exception to the bank’s distributing virtual currency. Either way, it spells the end, at least for the moment, of one of the more interesting crossovers between the virtual and the real — though it may have been a crossover that was doomed from the start, given the regulatory issues involved. [Via Virtual Worldlets.]