Price of Iceland's Auroracoin Falls 50% Against Bitcoin After Airdrop

After weeks of anticipation, Iceland's attempted national digital currency auroracoin commenced its Airdrop - the distribution of 31.8 AUR to interested citizens - at midnight local time on 25th March as part of stage one of its three-part launch.

The upstart auroracoin even garnered bitcoin-sized international news coverage, with mentions in media outlets such as CNBC, Forbes and NBC. At press time, it seems that despite issues, auroracoin has succeeded at distributing its coins to a sizeable group of recipients, though prices and overall market cap were down considerably.

The auroracoin website reported that 281,000 Airdrop coins had been claimed at press time, a figured that represented 2.68% of the total of 10.5m Airdrop coins.

As of 16:00 GMT, roughly 16 hours after the Airdrop commenced, the price of auroracoin was holding relatively stable, according to figures from Coinmarketcap.

The price drop was so precipitous, auroracoin holders gathered on its official forum to debate whether to hold the currency in the face of its rapid devaluation.

Auroracoin had declined more than 50% against bitcoin in the last 24 hours alone at press time.

The most common issue reported by auroracoin users were perhaps "Request timeout" errors.

The Auroracoin forum also was a gathering place for those who wanted to share success stories from the Airdrop.

It is worth noting that such positive feedback was tweeted to auroracoin prior to its price drop.

Doubtless, many observers will be paying attention in the coming days and months as the auroracoin community still needs to work to increase awareness and adoption, especially among key demographics such as merchants, in order to succeed in its mission of providing a viable alternative to Iceland's krona.