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Auroracoin: Cryptocurrency for every Icelandic resident
- milesf 13y agoIt's now the third most valuable cryptocurrency according to http://coinmarketcap.com/mineable-all.html http://coinmarketcap.com/mineable-all.html
- simlevesque 13y agoI think that you meant that is has the third biggest market cap.
- milesf 13y agoAh 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
- narrator 13y agoBitcoin is the Devil's way of demonstrating F.A Hayek was on to something with his essay "The Denationalization Of Money."
- tlrobinson 13y agoTruth. I've learned quite a lot about the nature of money since becoming interested in Bitcoin.
- hooo 13y agoThis must have been around for a little while then? Where is it traded?
- kristianp 13y agoIt'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 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=446062.0
- dustcoin 13y agoIt is premined and thinly traded. http://signalvnoise.com/posts/1941-press-release-37signals-valuation-tops-100-billion-after-bold-vc-investment http://signalvnoise.com/posts/1941-press-release-37signals-v...
- boon 13y agoFascinating idea.
- boon 13y agoWait. How do I get down-voted for saying this a fascinating idea? Does that even imply that I support it? Lame.
- pikachu_is_cool 13y agoNo, it's because you aren't following the guidelines. Post interesting content. This isn't reddit.
- boon 13y agoFair enough.
- Einstalbert 13y agoThis 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.
- gnerd 13y agoI feel like on any given day I could fall into any one of those two camps.
- ChristianBundy 13y agoI'm pretty damn sure I've got one foot in each camp.
- pikachu_is_cool 13y agoI mean, like, this is a subdomain for ycombinator.com...
- milesf 13y agoSo 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.
- 345723 13y agoYou are about to witness the same exact thing as what just happened in Iceland—a massive ponzi scheme.
- gus_massa 13y agoFrom a link in other comment http://coinmarketcap.com/mineable-all.html 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.
- arg01 13y agoMy 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...
- heydenberk 13y agoOriginal post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7271496 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7271496
- yownie 13y agoas 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.
- chm 13y agoEverybody 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.
- throwaway_yy2Di 13y agoIsn'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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_Bitcoin
- sroerick 13y agoIsn'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.
- qnaal 13y agoThe fact that it's illegal but not morally wrong makes it immoral to preserve the law.
- fleitz 13y agoThey should call it tailings pile coin instead because it's been premined so badly.
- e3pi 13y agoTheir 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.
- stefan_kendall 13y agoTwo scenarios: 1.) Nothing happens. No one uses auroracoin. 2.) Auroracoin becomes successful, and the government of iceland makes it illegal like bitcoin. When the problem is government, the solution is not creative free-marketism. A government that does not allow holding in foreign currency or bitcoin is one that needs to be destroyed.
- valdiorn 13y agoHow do I get my coins? (I'm icelandic)