Auroracoin showed how it can be done, although they ultimately failed for a couple of reasons, the concept is good. Maybe in a decade from now a similar thing will be done with a Bitcoin successor, who knows.
NEM is the best with the distribution concept. Great team too. The next big thing.
I have to hand it to NEM. Their distribution concept is novel by any definition. Whether or not it has much success, we'll have to find out.