The mysterious case of the Lindex crash

Over on the Second Life forum there has been a discussion about the mysterious behaviour of the Lindex last night. The claim is that people were selling for L$200 to the dollar, that's a massive swing.

However more worryingly is the claim that a sell rate of 262 was there, but they weren't shifting. Which suggests that buyers would have been getting a raw deal, especially if they were buying at L$200 to the dollar.

There was evidence earlier that something had been amiss, there were plenty of Linden dollars avaialble at a sell rate of 262, some at 261 and then a jump to 254, that's not normal.

There is also evidence in the current sell rates, 262 is lowish in reality at 19 million (It doesn't take long to get through 19 million) but then look at the next highest amount of dollars for sale rates, it's not as you'd expect 261 and 260:

L$241 - $2,101,665
L$254 - $1,412,485
L$251 - $1,056,350
L$253 - $1,006,518

In the thread people are claiming that sales at 250 and 251 were being met within minutes, even today. Now you might think that Supply Linden is having a holiday but, ordinarily there would be a lot more Linden dollars being sold on the exchange. What on earth is going on, and more to the point, are buyers being given a raw deal here?

There was a Second Life Status update about the Lindex, they closed it down for maintenance:

"We are temporarily halting Linden Dollar (L$) purchases for maintenance and review purposes.   Please monitor this post for updates and further information."

That issue is now resolved, however that still doesn't explain the lack of Linden dollars being sold does it, I mean people are always putting money on there, it's worrying low at the moment and it looks as if this evening could produce not only a downturn again, but a distinct lack of available cash to buy unless there's a sudden injection of funds.