Last week, police in Iceland arrested 11 people in connection with the theft of some 600 bitcoin mining units over four separate incidents in December and January. With an estimated value of around $2 million, the thefts have been dubbed the “Big Bitcoin Heist” by local media. The mining hardware has yet to be recovered.

Over the past several years, the nation of Iceland has become a hotbed of activity for cryptocurrency mining. With a naturally cold climate (averaging just under 60°F in summer) and ready access to cheap geothermal electricity, the island nation is often seen as an ideal location for large bitcoin mining facilities. As in most countries, […]

When the Auroracoin “airdrop” began yesterday, things did not look promising for the Icelandic alt-coin. A crush of users trying to claim their coins effectively caused DDoS attack on the site, and other technical glitches resulted in the site falling to the bottom of alt-coin value tracking site Coinmarketcap, landing just above CorgiCoin. And to […]

In the world of bitcoin-variant cryptocurrencies, few experiments have gained as much attention as Auroracoin. The Icelandic alt-coin was designed to offer a viable alternative to the nation’s long-troubled domestic currency, the krona, which has massively devalued in recent years. One key part of the plan to launch Auroracoin is the so-called “airdrop” of half […]

Earlier this month, Auroracoin caught the attention of the cryptocurrency community when it briefly passed Litecoin in value, becoming the third most valuable virtual currency on circulation. This sudden spike in value also caught the attention of another group: Iceland’s banking regulators, central bankers and Iceland’s parliament, the Althing. Yesterday, the Althing’s Economic Affairs and […]

It has been just under a month since the launch of Iceland’s Auroracoin, and the virtual currency is already skyrocketing. According to cryptocurrency tracking website Coinmarketcap, Auroracoin’s total market capitalization is $799,926,174, making it the third largest virtual currency after Bitcoin and Ripple. The new virtual currency has knocked Litecoin, often referred to as the […]