Premine distribution / claims: https://explorer.auroracoin.eu/
Burned rest of the premine: AURburnAURburnAURburnAURburn7eS4Rf

To make things even more convoluted, anybody can issue their own euros (for example), simply by writing an IOU. This is effectively what banks do, making their version of the currency (theoretically) less valuable than euros issued by the ECB (sovereign money), simply because the private banks are less reliable issuers.

The Icelandic regulatory framework is gradually becoming clearer already now, largely thanks to the work of the Auraráð Foundation (Auroracoin Foundation Iceland). We already have preliminary rulings to the effect that digital currencies are treated equally to other currencies for transaction and trading purposes.

However, Iceland is also bound by the rulings of the European Court of Justice as part of the European Economic Area. Most importantly, the ECJ Hedqvist case from October 2015 pretty much puts digital currencies on equal footing with traditional currencies:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-22/bitcoin-virtual-currency-exchange-is-tax-free-eu-court-says-ig21wzcd

With only the slightest sliver of reservation it can be said that digital currencies are already legal tender in Europe even if they're not sovereign money. (In the US, however, the situation is entirely different, but that's another story.)

I stand by it in this case. The cumulative probability density plot for the number of MPs for individual parties can be found here:
http://kosningaspa.is/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/thingmannaspa28-7.png

The statistical difference between the Pirates (P) and the Independence Party (D) is really quite exorbitant.

The Pirates remain the most likely to lead a government coalition, though.

Just to set expectations for the results of today's parliamentary elections in Iceland:

• The Pirate Party is definitely not going to win as in becoming the biggest political party,
• however, the bloc (APSV) controlled by the Pirates has a 58% chance of winning the majority of seats in the Althingi,
• augmented to a 98% chance if the right-liberal C party joins the bloc, as they have been invited to, while
• the current (BD) majority is 98% guaranteed to fall, and
• the only majority not including the Pirates (BCD) is 42% likely.

For the mathematically inclined, here are the results of a statistically rigid Monte Carlo simulation based on a weighted and probability-distributed set of the latest polls:
http://kosningaspa.is/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/thingmannaspa28-9.png

Key to the figure:
The red line denotes the cut-off for a majority in the 63-seat Althingi
APSV=the Pirate-led (P) bloc
BD=the currently reigning parties
C=the new right-wing liberal (wildcard) party

Many of the views and beliefs presented in this thread are based on some old and indeed wrong information.

Auroracoin is now a serious real-life adoption project coordinated by the Icelandic Auroracoin Foundation:
http://aurarad.is/

Please refer to the Auroracoin Foundation thread on BCT.
It is useful to start reading from here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1467050.msg16687336#msg16687336

When discussing supply, demand and valuation, please bear in mind the relative size of the ISK and AUR economies:

Starting with the AUR
14.0m  in existence, subtracting the
  5.3m  burned, subtracting the
  1.0m  Aurarad foundation M1 fund, subtracting the
  2.0m  coins lost (guess), we arrive at a net estimated
  5.7m  total M3 supply of AUR.

Now, 5.7m AUR times the current price of 320b gives a market capitalisation of about BTC 1830 ≈ ISK 26m ≈ $226k, which again equals about 0.0012% of the current Icelandic GDP and 0.0015% of the ISK M3.

If you assume 10% of the above AUR M3 amount is in fact liquid M2 (i.e. AUR 570,000), the AUR economy currently constitutes about 0.00015% (1/65,000th) of the Icelandic economy.

If evenly distributed among a population of 330,000 this amounts to about ISK 80 per person ≈ $0.70 ≈ €0.65. You can’t buy anything for that in Iceland, in fact it’s far closer to the price of an empty paper cup than one filled with coffee.

For AUR to become successful as a currency, its valuation simply needs to increase a hundredfold over the next few years just to become 0.2-0.1% of the ISK economy (factoring in a growing proportion of M2/M3). This amounts to each person transacting ISK 8000 ≈ $70 ≈ €65 worth of AUR per year. Any smaller, and you’re not really talking about much of an AUR economy at all.

It is therefore little wonder that the supply book is thin at the current prices while the Aurarad Foundation is working hard to provide the tools and regulatory transparency for the AUR economy to thrive. With solid infrastructure, adoption will be able to follow over the next several years. It simply does not work the other way around.

Yeah. Better to treat what one observes in the media as data, not information. Then process and verify.

In case you missed my earlier post, the awareness campaign is meant for Icelanders and will go on for the next few months. After that, field-adoption activities will take place over the course of the next year or so. Frankly, "providing evidence" outside the Icelandic community is a non-priority until we have a success story to tell. Speculators may as well turn their attention elsewhere, but we do welcome and would be thankful for any offers to help.

To the speculators on this chat:

Contrary to almost all other digital currencies, Auroracoin is primarily meant as a medium of exchange (transaction money). Hence, we need fewer speculators and more users. We will unavoidably disappoint the former, as all our activities are designed for slow adoption and growth, avoiding hype and price swings.

Auroracoin is a long-term project that aims to replace the ruined Icelandic monetary system with something better. As such it will have international ramifications if successful, but until then is best left to the Auraráð Foundation core team and the Icelandic people. The Auroracoin awareness campaign that has recently begun will stretch over many months, and be followed by field-adoption activities over the next year or so.

We neither need nor want to prove anything to the outside world until we have adoption success to report. In fact, the less international attention the better, so as to keep the AUR/ISK exchange rate in check to facilitate adoption of Auroracoin among Icelanders.

The key problem for merchants is market depth and price stability when they have revenues in AUR but costs in ISK. Going forward, there will be a role for a mediator (a factoring company of sorts) to provide a guaranteed and relatively stable exchange rate to merchants who don't want the risk or hassle of selling the AUR themselves.

The business model of the factoring company is of course to profit on the price difference. Clearing vis-a-vis merchants will be done off-market, possibly with the aid of private equity / dark pool investors, with AUR funds fed back into the market in a controlled manner to recover the ISK at a profit.

A final solution is of course to identify cases where merchants can have both their revenues and expenses in AUR. Low-hanging fruit for AUR business development are used-goods exchanges, companies with high-margin but non-core products and/or niche and novelty marketing needs – especially if can pay part of their salaries in AUR.

The bare-minimum price difference between AUR bought with ISK and AUR bought with ISK->USD->BTC is around 8%. This is simply the sum total of the high (5-%) credit card transfer fees, disadvantageous BTC sell offers on the cc-enabled exchanges (2+%) and the difference between the Icelandic banks' and VISA Iceland's ISK/USD exchange rate (1%).

Given all the hassle, this bare-mininum 8% premium is probably more like 15% or more. Indeed, the Icelandic market has sustained a +30% price pretty steadily over this initial week of business at ISX – as is indeed the case right now when AUR is at 35 ISK on ISX, and at the same time at 480b on Bittrex, which is exactly 30%.

However, the volume on ISX after its opening on 3 May has been as high or higher than on Bittrex, which begs the question of who drives whom.

Anyway, arbitrage ought to equalise the two to within around 15% over time, or until the capital controls in Iceland are lifted, at which time the difference should be within 1% (i.e. the difference between the banks' buy and sell rates for ISK/USD plus the small transfer costs).

The macroeconomic view on price is that in the medium term we need fluid AUR supply to be at minimum worth one ten-thousandth of the Icelandic money supply for effective commercial use. This again means that AUR/BTC needs to be at around 0.0024 if hodling is at 90% of the AUR supply.

In the future, as hodling decreases and a greater proportion of AUR becomes fluid, we will also need proportionally even more AUR for transactions if all goes well (e.g. for 1 in 1000 transactions), which would mean that AUR/BTC needs to increase further to satisfy the demand.

The above only addresses the medium-of-exchange facet of AUR, ignoring the store-of-value driver (beyond hodling), which also has an effect on price.

This is the nature of markets. The bus-stop campaign was known in advance and therefore already incorporated in the price, even before it happened. People may even have understood this part of the marketing program to be something more than it really is – an awareness campaign – and hence had unrealistic expectations. The adoption of a country coin is a long-term process and I advise speculators to look elsewhere.