IMVU's new fiat-convertible VCOIN goes live on the social network. 

Per a Jan. 12 company announcement shared with Cointelegraph, VCOIN is available for users of IMVU, starting today.

IMVU already hosts over 27 million transactions a month using its non-blockchain-backed credits. VCOIN aims to give users involved in those transactions the opportunity to convert their earnings into value that they can use off the platform, both in peer-to-peer transactions and in conversion to fiat, integrating the game's virtual economy into the rest of the economy more tangibly.

Regarding the hoped-for boost to the virtual world's economy, IMVU's chief strategy and blockchain officer, John Burris, told Cointelegraph:

"All kinds of users are going to be able to specialize in their skill sets. So builders of rooms can now get paid by hosts that want to run that room, people who are great designing clothes but not great at marketing them can get paid by creators who put those virtual goods into the marketplace. You can take your VCOIN off platform and pay other users who have never even heard of IMVU with VCOIN because it will have real value."

Users will be able to buy and sell VCOIN from and to IMVU at a fixed rate of 250 VCOIN for $1, though there will likely be a premium for purchases from mobile devices to pay fees required by Google's Play Store and Apple's App Store.

While on the platform, users will, broadly, be able to treat the coin like IMVU's existing credits. They won't need to provide know-your-customer information like government identification until they want to move VCOINs off the platform into wallets, where they will function as typical ERC-20 tokens. Hot wallet provider Uphold will manage the VCOIN wallets. 

IMVU was only the third crypto token to receive a no-action letter from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC's letter set out boundaries for VCOIN's usage, including provisions like stable price that aim to keep the token from behaving as an investment into IMVU.

By tying VCOIN to the internal economy of IMVU's 3D avatar-based social network, the firm has set out an interesting use case for a contained digital asset, which seems to be more appealing to the SEC than, say, messenger app Telegram's plans for GRAM tokens.