[ANN][AUR] Auroracoin - a cryptocurrency for Iceland

[Skarfur]

For those of you who are wondering why Auroracoin came to a halt in Iceland, the answer is very simple.

...
there was no actual demand for them from normal Icelanders, and no way to spend them on anything useful?

There were a lot of buying and selling stuff in the beginning but this was mostly done through social media and no real way to realise the currency's value. That is why the exchange is so important. If merchants have the ability to convert aur into isk they would be more willing to accept aur as payment.

[Bimmerhead]

Would merged-mining have any impact on AUR transaction fees?

[Skarfur]

We have however not fully decided what direction we should take regarding the mining algo. This has been discussed back and forth. What I hope to see here is some discussion and opinions from the community. As we see it there are just two options to think about. Use an algo that is asic resistant and thus give the individual a chance to do some mining at home. This however is often an illusion as most of the asic resistant algo's are largely mined my gpu mining farms thus beating the point. Of course there might be other algo's out there that are gpu resistant but how reliable are they? The other option is to either go with SHA-256 or continue with scrypt and be mined mainly be the large mining farms. This option in many ways is good as it has much more potential to secure the network so we have been leaning towards this. This would also give us a good opportunity to be merge mined with some of the larger coins which would be a brilliant way to secure the network. It would be great to get some opinions and ideas from you guys regarding this matter.

I'm leaning towards sha-256.

Yes, it's a nice idea to think that icelandic population could home-mine with something "asic-proof", but I think it's a pipe dream that wont last long.

The goal of getting AUR into the hands of icelanders is already achieved by the airdrop, so I'd focus on simplicity and proven tech regarding mining algo: sha-256.

In the long run, I think it could even make sense to migrate AUR off its own chain into a merge-mined btc sidechain or onto ethereum or something along those lines. After all, AUR is not about some mining (or other technological) innovation, it's about Iceland and the people there. So why not piggyback on some established tech and use the security offered there?

just my 0.02

I agree with that. I think no matter how much effort is put into making a crypto asic-resistant as I really don't believe there is really a good way to make it asic-proof, only way's to delay the inevitable.

The whole idea of Auroracoin is not to develop or enhance a technology but to get cryptocurrency accepted and used by the public. So this is why we think it's just best to piggyback an established technology like you said and focus on public acceptance and adoption.

[molecular]

The whole idea of Auroracoin is not to develop or enhance a technology but to get cryptocurrency accepted and used by the public. So this is why we think it's just best to piggyback an established technology like you said and focus on public acceptance and adoption.

I agree 100%.

Of course this is a little early now. I think we could go with the current chain for some more time until momentum is gained and there's enough  enthusiasm to migrate mobile wallets and whatnot to the new solution. Of course distribution would have to be copied from classicAUR, otherwise all trust is destroyed. The 'classic' chain would probably live on and there would be some confusion about why there are 2 versions of AUR now. So it needs to be prepared well with a broad consensus and awareness of the migration. altcoin exchanges would have to be in the boat, too.

It's really refreshing to see you are making plans for AUR. I agree that a direct fiat exchange to ISK is extremely helpful.

Now as you said, there are many questions and I hope you can answer some:

• Can you elaborate a bit about the regulatory hurdles for setting up the fiat exchange in Iceland? I'm guessing there would be quite a few, given the capital controls and all that. What are the dangers here (bankster-driven government clampdown or some shit once AUR gains traction and becomes a danger for the established monetary system)?
• Balduro still controls the majority of AUR in the premined addresses, I assume. The airdrop will need to end at some point. Can he be convinced to destroy coins or give up control of them when time comes to end the airdrop?
• airdrop plans: Last change of airdrop plan was unexpected and seemed arbitrary and random. There was no communication and the auroracoin.org airdrop pages still contain the old plan. This has left me (and probably many others) with an uneasy feeling about the future of the premined coins. Do you have any idea of how this might develop?
  

let me also offer my general help with things: I don't have much time on my hand, but I'd be willing to donate some work or whatever. Just drop me a line.

Also: I run http://blockexplorer.auroracoin.eu. Should your plans to acquire auroracoin.org fail, this might be an option. I know it's not the best one by far, but let me offer to donate auroracoin.eu to you should you want it as long as I get to host subdomain blockexplorer.auroracoin.eu.

thanks for your enthusiasm and work!
molec

[molecular]

The national currency is the strongest brand of a country, for those who are using the currency daily. Auroracoin is a Icelandic currency and I will not dilute that by merged mining, if there is another way to secure the coin.

20 years from now I will be pleasantly surprised to hear that Auroracoin is mined only in Iceland with clean, green energy. And the mining profit is invested back in green projects around the world. So instead of more aluminum you are producing more freedom.
A deal with industrial miners based in Iceland can be a way to archive that.

Can you (or anyone else) explain how merged mining would be diluting the fact that Auroracoin is a Icelandic currency?

It's already mined outside Iceland for the most part, I assume and frankly I don't understand why that's a problem or how it could be avoided.

I share your love for freedom and the idea of AUR being mined with green energy in Iceland, but I don't see how this can (or should) be forced. If it makes sense it will be done, if not, AUR might be mined with 'dirty energy' in China.

I suggested earlier to move the focus away from mining and rather piggyback onto some higher security. If AUR is only mined in Iceland (for some reason), it seems to me if it's a success, that will not be high enough security and it'd be vulnerable to attack. Why risk that?

It's not about mining, it's about freedom.

[Skarfur]

Would merged-mining have any impact on AUR transaction fees?

Maybe not the best explanation but I'm not the expert on this matter myself but as I understand it transactions fees would not change. The AuxPoW works on two separate blockchains and its just about the miners on the parent chain being able to generate blocks for the secondary chain while hashing to solve blocks for the parent chain. Other than that things stay the same.

[dinobotta]

I think security for the coin should be the main focus. If that means its best to drop the scrypt mining and make it possible to merge mine it with other coins I'm all for it. My only concern is whether this will have any effect on the end user during the forking. Will the normal Icelander that has no idea what is going on have to update all wallets or will they just continue to use their old wallets?

Little bit off topic but is the final airdrop planned 25th of November?

[Skarfur]

The whole idea of Auroracoin is not to develop or enhance a technology but to get cryptocurrency accepted and used by the public. So this is why we think it's just best to piggyback an established technology like you said and focus on public acceptance and adoption.

I agree 100%.

Of course this is a little early now. I think we could go with the current chain for some more time until momentum is gained and there's enough  enthusiasm to migrate mobile wallets and whatnot to the new solution. Of course distribution would have to be copied from classicAUR, otherwise all trust is destroyed. The 'classic' chain would probably live on and there would be some confusion about why there are 2 versions of AUR now. So it needs to be prepared well with a broad consensus and awareness of the migration. altcoin exchanges would have to be in the boat, too.

It's really refreshing to see you are making plans for AUR. I agree that a direct fiat exchange to ISK is extremely helpful.

Now as you said, there are many questions and I hope you can answer some:

• Can you elaborate a bit about the regulatory hurdles for setting up the fiat exchange in Iceland? I'm guessing there would be quite a few, given the capital controls and all that. What are the dangers here (bankster-driven government clampdown or some shit once AUR gains traction and becomes a danger for the established monetary system)?
• Balduro still controls the majority of AUR in the premined addresses, I assume. The airdrop will need to end at some point. Can he be convinced to destroy coins or give up control of them when time comes to end the airdrop?
• airdrop plans: Last change of airdrop plan was unexpected and seemed arbitrary and random. There was no communication and the auroracoin.org airdrop pages still contain the old plan. This has left me (and probably many others) with an uneasy feeling about the future of the premined coins. Do you have any idea of how this might develop?
  

let me also offer my general help with things: I don't have much time on my hand, but I'd be willing to donate some work or whatever. Just drop me a line.

Also: I run http://blockexplorer.auroracoin.eu. Should your plans to acquire auroracoin.org fail, this might be an option. I know it's not the best one by far, but let me offer to donate auroracoin.eu to you should you want it as long as I get to host subdomain blockexplorer.auroracoin.eu.

thanks for your enthusiasm and work!
molec

Yes the fork would always needed to be well planed, coordinated and executed with caution.

• The regulatory hurdles for the exchange were actually none. We have sent official inquiry to the central bank, tax office and the financial administration. The answers from them were all the same. They don't really have any regulations regarding this. The main restriction Icelandic people have is that we have currency restrictions so we do not get an exception to those restriction to purchase foreign currency for the sole purpose to buy cryptocurrency. We also have a return policy on foreign currency. If we acquire some foreign currency we are bound to trade it back to isk within a time limit. So there are only two ways for Icelandic people to get crypto currency legally. First is to mine it and the second is to buy it with isk. That is why Auroracoin and this airdrop was important here.
  
  No institution here has formed any regulation regarding cryptocurrency, they are just waiting for EU to form some regulations and most likely will implement them partially or fully when they arrive. Since there are no regulations for it they defined it not as a currency but as a property. So it is treated and taxed as such. For this reason we do not have any problems with setting up the exchange here. It would be just the same as setting up a trading site for stamps.
  
  There are a couple of dangers. First is that the banks would see this as a threat and would refuse to keep an bank account for the exchange and second is that the government would see auroracoin to be a treat to stability and would try to stop it by closing the exchange/s with regulations or that the government implements the same regulations as EU and those regulations would bring some limitations.
  
  
• Regarding Balduro and the premine. I have no reason at all to believe that he would not destroy the airdrop when the distribution period comes to an end. Beside the changes of the second phase airdrop he has not proved to be dishonest regarding the premine.
  
  
• I myself was one of those left uneasy after the last airdrop. I think the change was a mistake in many ways but I do understand what he was trying to do. He was trying to give the amount distributed to each individual enough value (the market rate at the time) to make it tempting for people to fetch the second batch. The second thing that was changed there is that he took 1milion aur and gave it to the Icelandic Cryptocurrency Society (ICS) group for bounties and development of the coin. Both of these were a mistake in my opinion. To increase the airdrop portion tenfold was a bit of a kick in the face for the miners and all long term supporters as this greatly devalued the coin at the time. Then I think that taking a million of the premine and to put it up for development etc. has a lot of dangers in it. I know that this million is in safe hands though so I do not worry about it myself at the time but eventually the ICS will have to decide what to do with this million. This is a ground for all kind of debate and I would love to hear some of it here.

All help is appreciated and thanks for offering the auroracoin.eu domain if we cant get the .org one. Now we are just coming out with our plans. They are not fully complete nor do we have all the resources we need to do this alone. This is a community project and I would love to see more of the community stand up and work together on this. As this is not about money as so many seem to think, it is about our freedom. Sounds cheesy but that is my opinion on what cryptocurrency is really about.

I hope this answers your questions but I'm sure I have raised a few others

[Skarfur]

I think security for the coin should be the main focus. If that means its best to drop the scrypt mining and make it possible to merge mine it with other coins I'm all for it. My only concern is whether this will have any effect on the end user during the forking. Will the normal Icelander that has no idea what is going on have to update all wallets or will they just continue to use their old wallets?

Little bit off topic but is the final airdrop planned 25th of November?

As I understand things it is not required but desired. The blockchain remains the same even if you are not on the most up to date client. Exchanges and mining pools on the other hand are required to update to the latest version.

The final phase of the airdrop should be on 25th of November according to the blueprint. Unfortunately I stand in the same place as you when it comes to that as our group really has no power over this. However I see no reason why it would not go forth on that date as Balduro started the second phase on time.

[rocanonz]

The whole idea of Auroracoin is not to develop or enhance a technology but to get cryptocurrency accepted and used by the public. So this is why we think it's just best to piggyback an established technology like you said and focus on public acceptance and adoption.

• I myself was one of those left uneasy after the last airdrop. I think the change was a mistake in many ways but I do understand what he was trying to do. He was trying to give the amount distributed to each individual enough value (the market rate at the time) to make it tempting for people to fetch the second batch. The second thing that was changed there is that he took 1milion aur and gave it to the Icelandic Cryptocurrency Society (ICS) group for bounties and development of the coin. Both of these were a mistake in my opinion. To increase the airdrop portion tenfold was a bit of a kick in the face for the miners and all long term supporters as this greatly devalued the coin at the time. Then I think that taking a million of the premine and to put it up for development etc. has a lot of dangers in it. I know that this million is in safe hands though so I do not worry about it myself at the time but eventually the ICS will have to decide what to do with this million. This is a ground for all kind of debate and I would love to hear some of it here.

The airdrop blueprint clearly states: "The right is reserved to repeat the Airdrop reset stages as many times as necessary to get the coins into circulation, as well as any other measure intended for the same purpose." But what now? What comes next?
I guess the airdrop will continue as stated in the airdrop blueprint.

[Skarfur]

The whole idea of Auroracoin is not to develop or enhance a technology but to get cryptocurrency accepted and used by the public. So this is why we think it's just best to piggyback an established technology like you said and focus on public acceptance and adoption.

• I myself was one of those left uneasy after the last airdrop. I think the change was a mistake in many ways but I do understand what he was trying to do. He was trying to give the amount distributed to each individual enough value (the market rate at the time) to make it tempting for people to fetch the second batch. The second thing that was changed there is that he took 1milion aur and gave it to the Icelandic Cryptocurrency Society (ICS) group for bounties and development of the coin. Both of these were a mistake in my opinion. To increase the airdrop portion tenfold was a bit of a kick in the face for the miners and all long term supporters as this greatly devalued the coin at the time. Then I think that taking a million of the premine and to put it up for development etc. has a lot of dangers in it. I know that this million is in safe hands though so I do not worry about it myself at the time but eventually the ICS will have to decide what to do with this million. This is a ground for all kind of debate and I would love to hear some of it here.

The airdrop blueprint clearly states: "The right is reserved to repeat the Airdrop reset stages as many times as necessary to get the coins into circulation, as well as any other measure intended for the same purpose." But what now? What comes next?
I guess the airdrop will continue as stated in the airdrop blueprint.

Yeah I forgot to mention that. That is why I can't really complain as this statement was there from the beginning, even though I don't agree with the changes. My guess is the same as yours, I don't really see any reason he would make any further changes as the situation hasn't changed from the state he set after the last changes.

[dinobotta]

I think Baldur will increase the airdrop amount by a factor of 10 again, to release all the coins to the people who are willing to accept them.

I also think this is a great time point for a ISK / AUR exchange to get online. With the uncertainty of the airdrop out of the way the real price discovery can start.

[molecular]

I hope this answers your questions but I'm sure I have raised a few others

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions. This has really helped and cleared some things up. You also added new information I hadn't previously known about (the 1 million, for example).

I agree that increasing the 2nd airdrop 10-fold was not a good move. It scared away past and future supporters / investors and gave fuel to the opposition. As much as I sometimes despise of 'greedy speculators', one has to acknowledge they (alongside the miners and community developers) play a vital role in giving AUR value. I think it would make sense to destroy a large part of the premine prior to 3rd airdrop stage. That also (like increasing the airdrop amount) increases the value of the individual airdrop share (by ways of people regaining confidence in the management of the supply and also by ways of reducing the potential final supply and hence price rising) and it doesn't spread uncertainty and drive investors, miners or general supporters / evangelists away.

[Skarfur]

I think Baldur will increase the airdrop amount by a factor of 10 again, to release all the coins to the people who are willing to accept them.

I also think this is a great time point for a ISK / AUR exchange to get online. With the uncertainty of the airdrop out of the way the real price discovery can start.

Well I hope he will not increase it 10 fold again as that would really! corrupt the idea behind this distribution. To release all the coins is meaningless as such. It doesn't matter how many coins will eventually be in circulation just that there is a fixed amount. For a user it doesn't matter if he uses 50, 5, 1 or 0.000001 aur to buy a Coke. Also it doesn't matter if Baldur burns 7million or 300.000 in the end. I don't think he was increasing the amount in the last phase to distribute more coins, he was trying to reach more people rather than giving more to few.

Yes I hope we can get the exchange up and running soon but we have run into some delays. It was supposed to be up in the beginning of this month but now we are hoping it can be up in the beginning of December. As this is something that needs to be done properly. To launch a unstable and faulty exchange could be a big blow to peoples trust in Auroaracoin.

What will be interesting after we launch the exchange is that Auroracoin might have quite different value in isk here in Iceland and in Bitcoin on the foreign exchanges. Likely they will hold in hand to begin with but it will be interesting to see how it will develop later on.

[Skarfur]

I hope this answers your questions but I'm sure I have raised a few others

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions. This has really helped and cleared some things up. You also added new information I hadn't previously known about (the 1 million, for example).

I agree that increasing the 2nd airdrop 10-fold was not a good move. It scared away past and future supporters / investors and gave fuel to the opposition. As much as I sometimes despise of 'greedy speculators', one has to acknowledge they (alongside the miners and community developers) play a vital role in giving AUR value. I think it would make sense to destroy a large part of the premine prior to 3rd airdrop stage. That also (like increasing the airdrop amount) increases the value of the individual airdrop share (by ways of people regaining confidence in the management of the supply and also by ways of reducing the potential final supply and hence price rising) and it doesn't spread uncertainty and drive investors, miners or general supporters / evangelists away.

The update information is on the blueprint page http://auroracoin.org/blueprint.php ,but I missed this too at first.

I agree with you. When this matter will be discussed by the ICS I will suggest the option to destroy the premine partially or fully. I think it was a bad idea in the first place and an amount like 1 million is just way too much. This was a break of trust in my opinion and destroying it partially or fully would be respectful to the supporters, investors and miners that have invested their time and money into this coin. That said there are is no guarantee that this will happen as this is not just up to me.

[dinobotta]

I just hope the ICS will use the coins to pay for work that is needs to be done. For starters set a bounty for a AUR / ISK exchange and set a bounty for a AUR iPhone wallet. 

[molecular]

I hope this answers your questions but I'm sure I have raised a few others

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions. This has really helped and cleared some things up. You also added new information I hadn't previously known about (the 1 million, for example).

I agree that increasing the 2nd airdrop 10-fold was not a good move. It scared away past and future supporters / investors and gave fuel to the opposition. As much as I sometimes despise of 'greedy speculators', one has to acknowledge they (alongside the miners and community developers) play a vital role in giving AUR value. I think it would make sense to destroy a large part of the premine prior to 3rd airdrop stage. That also (like increasing the airdrop amount) increases the value of the individual airdrop share (by ways of people regaining confidence in the management of the supply and also by ways of reducing the potential final supply and hence price rising) and it doesn't spread uncertainty and drive investors, miners or general supporters / evangelists away.

The update information is on the blueprint page http://auroracoin.org/blueprint.php ,but I missed this too at first.

I don't see it. For second stage I see this:

Stage 2
The Airdrop is reset. Every Icelander will be able to claim a part of the coins, left over 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 able to retrieve their gifts, as well as other Icelanders. This stage will last another 4 months.

clearly that's not what was done.

I agree with you. When this matter will be discussed by the ICS I will suggest the option to destroy the premine partially or fully. I think it was a bad idea in the first place and an amount like 1 million is just way too much. This was a break of trust in my opinion and destroying it partially or fully would be respectful to the supporters, investors and miners that have invested their time and money into this coin. That said there are is no guarantee that this will happen as this is not just up to me.

I understand your not making these decisions. Maybe it would be good if Balduro showed up or passed control on.

According to plan the undistributed part of the premine will be destroyed:

If more than 6% of the total Airdrop supply (10,500,000) remain in the premine addresses after Stage 3, any coins exceeding the 6% mark will be verifiably destroyed.

50% of the remaining coins will go towards a development fund and/or towards an Auroracoin foundation formed by the community. The other 50% will go towards a charity or charities, to be determined democratically by the Auroracoin community.

So 50% of 6% (that's 3%) of the remaining coins were originally planned to be given to towards development, not 1 million.

There's no way I trust the info on that page because the parts that should've been done in the described way just weren't.

If indeed 3180 AUR are distributed per airdrop in 3rd phase, there's no keeping up the exchange rate. It'll plummet to 0.00001 BTC/AUR if we're lucky, probably much lower. There's nothing positive in this for anyone.

[ontopicplease]

Hi,

Been thinking about the airdrop. An airdrop has pros and cons. Whenever there will be a third airdrop but people are still not really able to use/spend aurora, then it will kill the AUR/BTC rate. But whenever there is an airdrop when many Merchants are accepting then an airdrop will make the coin grow/make it more widely accepted.

Things have to be done in the right order, I guess.

1. Fist there have to be contact with Balduro to prevend a new big airdrop, it will kill the coin. i think this will not be so difficult, Balduro wants Aurora to be a succes.
2. Then the aur/isk exchange has to be launched.
3, Then the number of Aurora-accepting- Merchants has to grow. This is a huge job. A group of people must have the job to contact all the Merchants and concvince them to take Aurora.
4. Then a new airdrop can be successfull, when many people get some Aurora ( not a few people get a lot). Another option is of course burning the coins that aren't airdropped at the moment.

The other 1M coins that was given to the ICS is another thing. It would be very nice when it would be clear what is going to happen with those coins.

Overall there is a lot to be done and their many people needed to do this job. It might be best that ICS uses the 1M to pay allt he people that work on this project with the 1M. I also think, that Balduro wanted the 1M being spend this way.

When points 1 and 2 are done you could pay the people who getting the merchants on board, by paying them for every merchant they get.

[Skarfur]

I don't see it. For second stage I see this:

Stage 2
The Airdrop is reset. Every Icelander will be able to claim a part of the coins, left over 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 able to retrieve their gifts, as well as other Icelanders. This stage will last another 4 months.

It's at the top of the page.

Stage 2 UPDATE

• Stage 1 resulted in a claim rate of 10.2% of the population. In light of this, I have decided to increase the size of each portion to 318 AUR.
• I have also decided to transfer 1.000.000 AUR to the newly formed Icelandic Cryptocurrency Society. They will use the coins for adoption bounties and technical development.

I have no believe that the distribution amount will be increased as anyone can see it would destroy the coin.

[Skarfur]

Hi,

Been thinking about the airdrop. An airdrop has pros and cons. Whenever there will be a third airdrop but people are still not really able to use/spend aurora, then it will kill the AUR/BTC rate. But whenever there is an airdrop when many Merchants are accepting then an airdrop will make the coin grow/make it more widely accepted.

Things have to be done in the right order, I guess.

1. Fist there have to be contact with Balduro to prevend a new big airdrop, it will kill the coin. i think this will not be so difficult, Balduro wants Aurora to be a succes.
2. Then the aur/isk exchange has to be launched.
3, Then the number of Aurora-accepting- Merchants has to grow. This is a huge job. A group of people must have the job to contact all the Merchants and concvince them to take Aurora.
4. Then a new airdrop can be successfull, when many people get some Aurora ( not a few people get a lot). Another option is of course burning the coins that aren't airdropped at the moment.

The other 1M coins that was given to the ICS is another thing. It would be very nice when it would be clear what is going to happen with those coins.

Overall there is a lot to be done and their many people needed to do this job. It might be best that ICS uses the 1M to pay allt he people that work on this project with the 1M. I also think, that Balduro wanted the 1M being spend this way.

When points 1 and 2 are done you could pay the people who getting the merchants on board, by paying them for every merchant they get.

I don't think Baldur will like to delay the airdrop. My understanding was that he really wants to get this responsibility off his shoulders as soon as he can.

I don't think the second stage of the airdrop will create a mass dump of the coin. Just consider the beginning of the second phase, most of the coins that were claimed there were not dumped on the market and I doubt that it will be the case in the third phase. Of course there will be some dumping but if people know that there is an Icelandic exchange on the way it might even be less than in the previous phases. The exchange will surely open within the third airdrop phase and hopefully it will spark more claims than the second phase did.