Quote from: m4nki on July 06, 2016, 11:49:24 PM

Quote from: Skarfur on July 06, 2016, 10:19:39 PM

Quote from: Conqueror on July 06, 2016, 07:58:53 PM

Quote from: m4nki on July 06, 2016, 07:14:06 PM

I am interested in Auroracoin but often heard of it as being a scam.

Why do people say Auroracoin is/was a scam? As it has been a free airdrop among all of Iceland's citizens, I cannot see how this could be a scam?

There was tremendous pump at dump at the very beginning.
Lot of butthurts yelling scam. I call it free market.
This coin is legit project, especially now under new team.

Yes I would say that is the main foundation of the scam yelling along with the creator's anonymity.

This pump and dump had nothing to do with the developers at the time. There were just some unrealistic expectations that there would just be a bang and all of a sudden Auroracoin would be instantly adopted in Iceland. This of course could or would never happen as this takes hard dedicated work for a long period of time. The bank crash in 2008, capital controls and the airdrop are just factors to give Auroracoin a good head start. So I guess a lot of people got burned in the initial hype and the fact that the creator was/is anonymous and initially had control over 50% of the total coin supply that was premined was just a breeding ground for scam accusations. I myself was worried that something might surface that would prove these accusations correct but it never did and I would never had started to dedicate myself to this project, put my name and face behind it if there was anything that would have indicated that this project was not authentic. I believe that all the other guys who are dedicating themselves on this project with me would say the same.

Thanks to both of you for explaining. Out of all arguments for seeing the early Auroracoin as a scam, I can see how having an anonymous inventor holding 50% of the premine can be dangerous. I thought the initial coin supply was equally being distributed among all citizens that claimed their coins.

Anyhow I agree with you and wish you the best of luck! I think Iceland provides favorable circumstances that can help adopting crypto among the general public.

The premine was being distributed to the Icelandic public. The creator however had to hold the funds while it was being distributed for for a whole year. It was done in 3 phases where in each phase people had a chance to claim. The first phase was quite successful where there were claims for over 35.000 individuals (over 10% of our nation). There was a facebook scam where 700 claims were made by a scammer and of course there is some part where you have some people claiming for whole families and then selling it directly but the bulk of all the claims were authentic. Even if you would say that half of all the claims would be lost you still have a major! distribution within a single nation and not to mention all the publicity that the currency had here.