Bitcoin is an open source, peer-to-peer virtual currency which is generating a lot of discussion among the digerati lately, who variously describe it as either the most revolutionary innovation since the Internet itself, or an impractical exercise in libertarian onanism. (Or something in between.) One major hurdle: There's very few goods and services to buy with Bitcoin. Meanwhile, OpenSimulator is an open source, peer-to-peer virtual world technology which is lately showing some relatively impressive activity, but has a huge hurdle of its own: There's no universal currency with which to buy virtual content across the many OpenSim-based worlds.

Are you sensing a match made in metaverse heaven? Linden Lab alumni Karl Stiefvater sure does:

it is the PERFECT solution for creating an economy on the opensim grids. the viewer acts as your wallet, and exchanges bitcoins with the seller’s wallet. done. so how do you make that million dollars? well, you go and implement the bitcoin wallet in a third party viewer and the proper hooks for opensim.

Read the rest here. Offhand, it strikes me as a good idea, and maybe it can be extended even further: