How can Auroracoin be the 4th crypto-coin by market cap if it's unreleased yet?

Auroracoin has become the 4th biggest crypto-currency measured in market capitalization. How can an as-yet unreleased coin have market value if it's not available for exchange (either for fiat or for another crypto-coin) anywhere??? In fact, save for the storage accounts of its creator, noone has an Auroracoin yet. So whence comes its valuation and thus its market cap???

As much as I admire the stated intentions of Auroracoin's creators and their ingenuity for turning stuff traditionally seen as BAD (premining, universal and compulsory registration for all citizens) into GOOD, this market cap point makes me a bit suspicious.

Joe Pineda

Posted 2014-03-09T01:46:48.917

Reputation: 2 040

Ódinsson must be so proud: Auroracoin's success (if not to potential recipients it's at least deemed valuable by the market) has spurned imitators trying to salvage other national economies: spaincoin.org copies Aurora verbatim (save on a much larger scale) and now zimcoin.org . The latter's organizers will try to run a "central bank" of sorts for it, backing it up with BTC, LTC and commodities. And they'll try also exchanging old Zimbabwean dollars for Zimcoins! Good luck with both ideas – Joe Pineda – 2014-03-22T23:04:46.720

Answers

10,500,000 AUR were premined and are not yet available to the public. 10,610,000 AUR have been mined so far, so only 110,000 AUR are actually in circulation. That makes for a true market cap of only 110,000 x $32 = $3,520,000.

Tony

Posted 2014-03-09T01:46:48.917

Reputation: 1 104

Yes, I understand the 50% pre-mined part. What I don't get is why each is worth USD $27.86 if no-one but the creator has them (as of now, still 15 days for launch-day), no-one has traded them yet and thus there have been no trades at any exchange to allow the market to imbue a value onto it... – Joe Pineda – 2014-03-09T20:16:39.387

1Actually, they are traded on many exchanges, like Cryptsy, Mintpal, etc. You're right that the value doesn't make sense. But people are easily fueled by hype and aren't always rational. And there could be market manipulation going on. – Tony – 2014-03-09T20:32:38.713

Turns out I was wrong. It is mineable right away and it is actively being traded in different exchanges, as cryptorush.in and cryptsy. What hasn't happened yet is the release of the pre-mined coins (50% of final amount), which will be given to Icelandic citizens.

Too bad the official page isn't clear about this (info on pools and exchanges is a bit hidden in the forums), nor does it list anywhere a list of exchanges dealing with it or pools for mining it - the cryptocointalk page linked first states all that.

Joe Pineda

Posted 2014-03-09T01:46:48.917

Reputation: 2 040

Also it's minable on Multipool.us – hafnero – 2014-03-11T01:20:54.123

-2

The Aurora coin has been released, and can be mined, however even if this where not the case, And the coin had not yet been released the simple fact that the Government of Iceland are backing it and the 50% pre-mine could account for this capitalization.

hafnero

Posted 2014-03-09T01:46:48.917

Reputation: 841

4Can you provide a citation for "the Government of Iceland are backing it"? – Greg Hewgill – 2014-03-09T17:27:49.723

2As far as I know, the gov. of Iceland is not backing it and no-one but the creator can mine it. Can you please support both propositions with links to documents stating otherwise? – Joe Pineda – 2014-03-09T19:41:16.033

The Auroracoin page states the following: "The Airdrop will start to take place on March 25th 2014. A national ID database, created by the government will be used for this purpose." http://auroracoin.org/ So it seems like they are claiming the government is if not backing it at least in some way complicit.

– ThisGuy – 2014-03-13T20:46:24.203

The government does not support the coin. The central bank issued a warning about auroracoin the other day http://www.cb.is/publications-news-and-speeches/news-and-speeches/news/2014/03/19/Public-warning-concerning-virtual-currency/

– None – 2014-03-22T14:22:06.590