National Bitcoin Alternative Auroracoin Launches To Save Iceland's Economy

As many of you read this, all the good people of Iceland will have just become about 30 Auroracoin richer, which translates to nearly $350 if current prices hold.

Auroracoin is among the first serious attempts to use a new Bitcoin-inspired crypto-currency to save a flailing European economy.

Based off of Litecoin, itself an alternative to Bitcoin, Auroracoin is the brain child of Iceland’s own Satoshi Nakamoto-like character, who uses the pseudonym Baldur Friggjar Odinsson. While it launched in February, things will get really interesting when it officially begins to get distributed to the 330,000 citizens of the island nation on midnight local time on March 25. The distribution process has been dubbed an “air drop” and will take place in stages over the next year, during which time each citizen is basically allowed to claim a total of 31.8 Auroracoin.

As of this writing, just as the air drop is set to begin, Auroracoin has the fourth-largest market cap of any crypto-currency, with each coin valued at .02 bitcoin or about $11.60.
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