This article presents pioneering research on virtual money exchange (VMX) to protect the wealth generated in virtual worlds. This goal is realized by designing and implementing a VMX system through which virtual money exchange rates between virtual worlds are generated based on a redistribution strategy. Moreover, this strategy aims to re-value the total intrinsic value and the total exchangeable value of virtual currencies at a series of Pareto exchange points. We have designed, implemented, proved and extended a novel VMX exchange rate algorithm (VERA) algorithm, which implements the redistribution strategy. In order to observe the behavior of virtual money exchange rate generations, we built a VMX simulator to simulate various cases of virtual money exchange. Experiments on our VMX simulator show that minimum acceptable virtual exchange rates set by exchange requestors have a great impact on the success or failure of a virtual money exchange. This suggests the need for further research to reconcile the contradiction between presenting fair virtual currency exchange rates and achieving low fluctuations of virtual currency exchange rates. Finally, this research contributes to a better understanding of many aspects relating to virtual money, virtual currency exchange and virtual wealth protection. These are important for the future design and implementation of integrated virtual worlds. © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.