Auroracoin: Cryptocurrency for every Icelandic resident | Hacker News Reader

Auroracoin: Cryptocurrency for every Icelandic resident

auroracoin.org

40 pointsmilesf31 comments

Open articleView on HN

From a link in other comment http://coinmarketcap.com/mineable-all.html (with alternative formatting)

> #: 3

> Name: Auroracoin

> Market Cap: $ 180,504,106

> Price: $ 17.05

> Total Supply: 10,588,226 AUR

> Volume (24h) $ 151,421

I can't get a precise Market Cap graph, but apparently the price doubled since yesterday, and it increased a lot in the last week. The 24hs-volume is very low, this coin has the #9 position in that order. With a small volume it's easier to manipulate the market.

> Auroracoin is a cryptocurrency for Iceland. It is based on litecoin and is 50% premined. The premined coins will be distributed to the entire population of Iceland, commencing on midnight 25th of March 2014.

If we discount the 10,500,000 premined coins we 88,226 "wild" coins increasing slowly until March 25th. So the naive calculation gives a "wild" Market Cap of only 1,543,955. If this is successful, on March 25th the circulating coins well increase x120. A less successful hand out to a 10% of the population will increase it only x13. With a 1% it raises x2. I expect a big drop in the value and I don't understand why there are people buying this coin now.

My money is on people realising there will be a drop in value but want to get a return on the short term rise due to publicity between now and then. It's reasonable if you time it right but if everyone is playing the same game...

as part of the local bitcoin meetup here in Iceland, almost universally we believe it's a scam. The name does not exist in Iceland (we have a national directory, only 320,000 ppl). Premined 50% doesn't help either as well as the lack of awareness here Iceland about bitcoin and currency controls. This thing is preying on most foreigners false narrative of Iceland.

Who is behind Auroracoin? Do they communicate with other Icelandic cryptocurrency enthusiasts?

they're mildly active on fb here, but the name is a made up one.

So am I about to witness something called a "pump and dump" where someone started buying up Auroracoins to inflate the price, and then will slowly start selling them back?

I really don't understand how markets work, and cryptocoins are probably a terrible place to learn, but it's not costing me anything except some electricity from a spare computer running a GPU card.

You are about to witness the same exact thing as what just happened in Iceland—a massive ponzi scheme.

It's now the third most valuable cryptocurrency according to http://coinmarketcap.com/mineable-all.html

I think that you meant that is has the third biggest market cap.

Ah yes, that's what I meant.

I'm new to following the whole crypto currency thing. It's all wildly speculative and way too risky to bet money on, but I'm enjoying learning how much I don't know.

" War is God's way of teaching Americans geography."

  - Ambrose Bierce

"Bitcoin is the Devil's way of teaching geeks economics."

  - Revalin 165YUuQUWhBz3d27iXKxRiazQnjEtJNG9g

Bitcoin is the Devil's way of demonstrating F.A Hayek was on to something with his essay "The Denationalization Of Money."

Truth. I've learned quite a lot about the nature of money since becoming interested in Bitcoin.

This must have been around for a little while then? Where is it traded?

It's only been around for a few weeks I believe (Feb 2nd launch). Note that the market cap figure includes 10.5 million coins that are allocated to the population of Iceland.

If you click on the price on the coinmarketcap site, it shows the exchanges, two minor ones, "Crypto Rush" and "Poloniex".

Here is the release announcement: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=446062.0

It is premined and thinly traded.

http://signalvnoise.com/posts/1941-press-release-37signals-v...

Isn't this obviously illegal?

"I call on the cryptocurrency exchanges of the world to accept transactions with auroracoins."

That's plainly violating the capital control laws (on the Icelandic side). Notably, the central bank already declared that those laws apply to Bitcoin:

"It is prohibited to engage in foreign exchange trading with the electronic currency Bitcoin, according to the Icelandic Foreign Exchange Act"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_Bitcoin

Isn't this the point of the coin? Iceland's government made it illegal to use Bitcoin, so nobody can buy into the currency. By giving the premined coins to Icelandic citizens, they are trying to create a stable crypto ecosystem and help icelanders avoid the legal repercussions of the Icelandic Foreign Exchange act.

The wiki page you linked said this: "commentators suggest bitcoins mined within Iceland could be freely traded."

The premine is expressly for this purpose.

The fact that it's illegal but not morally wrong makes it immoral to preserve the law.

Everybody gets 30-some coins (which most probably won't happen). Then what? Who wants to trade them?

No pre-mine would have been the way to go. That would have made money change hands: people buy hardware, consume more electricity, pay the kid next door to take care of the mining rig, etc.

EDIT: I might have been too harsh. Good luck. I'm going bull on this, as might many others.

Their has been at least one headline of Iceland's cheap electricity has been harnessed to mine bitcoin. Likely other ecoins as litecoin. That's a nice marriage of circumstances of a small island nation of talented tech (eg: EVE Online - CCP Games's evolving vast servers), botched economy, and few other natural resources to export.

Original post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7271496

They should call it tailings pile coin instead because it's been premined so badly.

How do I get my coins? (I'm icelandic)

Fascinating idea.

Wait. How do I get down-voted for saying this a fascinating idea? Does that even imply that I support it? Lame.

No, it's because you aren't following the guidelines. Post interesting content. This isn't reddit.

Fair enough.

This truly is not reddit. I've noticed so many humor-less posts (not that every site needs a sense of humor) and so many grammatical errors that it really paints a picture; reddit is for bored, out of work english majors and this place seems to be for enlightened, snooty programmers.

I feel like on any given day I could fall into any one of those two camps.

I'm pretty damn sure I've got one foot in each camp.

I mean, like, this is a subdomain for ycombinator.com...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com