In February 2014, AuroraCoin was launched.
Source: Coinmarketcap
AuroraCoin’s Initial Premise
AuroraCoin was meant to be an alternative currency created to address the government’s regulation of Iceland’s krona. It was created by someone also with a fictitious name: Baldur Friggjar Óðinsson.
Using the Bitcoin protocol as a model, citizens of Iceland are being offered Aurocoin as an alternative to the Krona. Citing a steady decline in the Krona’s value and the collapse of 2008 as the reasoning behind this alternative, each Icelander became entitled to access their share of the new “cryptocurrency” in March of 2014.
Iceland was shaken by the financial crisis of 2008–09. Iceland’s banks collapsed, effectively wiping out the savings of thousands of citizens in a country where the population was around 300,000 at the time. As a result, almost a quarter of homeowners defaulted on their mortgages. Subsequently, the Krona devalued drastically. According to a report in the Economist, “Iceland’s financial failure forced its government to resign, and caused citizens to re-evaluate the merits of lavish spending, borrowing, consuming and speculating.”
AuroraCoin’s Airdrop in March 2014
Baldur looked to airdrop the cryptocurrency to the citizens of Iceland, with the intention of giving 50% of all AuroraCoins to Icelandic residents. His goal was simple: to jump-start the nation wide use of AuroraCoin. The airdrop was set in the following stages:
Stage 1 — Every Icelander will be able to claim a gift from me [Óðinsson] of 31.8 AUR, commencing on midnight March 25th. This stage will last 4 months.
Stage 2 — The Airdrop is reset. Every Icelander will be able to claim a part of the coins leftover from Stage 1 in the premine addresses. The amount of coins shall be calculated in the following way: (Stage 1 remaining coins / 330,000 = coins awarded). In this stage and the following, both the original recipients of the coins will be able to retrieve their gifts, as well as other Icelanders. This stage will last another 4 months.
Stage 3 — The Airdrop is reset again. Every Icelander will again be able to claim a part of the coins, leftover from Stage 2 in the premine addresses. The amount of coins shall be calculated in the following way: (Stage 2 remaining coins / 330,000 = coins awarded). This stage will last 4 months. At all stages the claimed coins will be a irreversible gift with full transfer of ownership.
A Meteoric Drop in Value
Due to speculators mistakenly believing that AuroraCoin was sponsored by the Icelandic government, speculators bid AuroraCoin’s network value to be over $1bn. By the time of the airdrop in March 2014, the frothiness had subsided. Eventually, the network value went down to $100m at the time of the airdrop. As citizens started to sell AuroraCoin for profit, the eventual network value was at $20m by the end of March 2014. As of Sept 2018, AuroraCoin has a total market cap of $3.8m.
An Attempted Comeback in 2016
In 2016, advertisements appeared in Iceland’s capital city of Reykjavik calling for AuroraCoin’s return. Auroracoin was also relocated to DigiByte, replacing the scrypt hashing algorithm with several algorithms (Grøstl, Qubit, scrypt, SHA-256 and Skein). This would have constituted the second birth for Auroracoin, effectively giving Icelanders a chance to buy and sell the coin without the currency controls being in the way.
At Present Moment
Today, AuroraCoin trades at US$0.33 with a total market cap of US$3.8m.
This story was originally post at https://learn.eurekapro.com/the-story-of-auroracoin-a-cautionary-tale-for-investors/
