gaming environments. An early example was the Q coin, which could be purchased from brick and mortar shops in China for use on Tencent’s online messaging platform [@lehdonvirta2014virtual]. Virtual currencies are now prevalent in massively multiplayer online games (e.g. World of Warcraft) or life simulation games (e.g. Second Life).

Where these currencies are used as the medium of exchange in an online virtual economy, they have similarities with their fiat currency counterparts. To start with, the currencies are typically used by the participants in the economy for the purchase of virtual goods and services. Secondly, the currencies feature a central authority, which similar to a country’s central bank[^4], can regulate the money supply in order to attain particular goals, such as controlling inflation or promoting economic growth. In particular, some platforms actively manage the monetary supply, increasing money supply through in game features, or reducing money supply through in game “sinks”, or desirable consumption items that remove money from the online environment @lehdonvirta2014virtual.

The limited interaction of virtual currencies with the real economy stems from the fact that for many of these virtual currencies, the flows between fiat and the virtual currency are uni-directional, i.e. one can only purchase, but 