Interesting topic, thank you OP.
Funny to read some of these emails today:
Sirius:
> Since they can be created for free (or at the cost
> of computer power people have anyway for other reasons),
> monetizing them means simply giving away money.
Satoshi:
You're still thinking as if the difficulty level will be so easy that
people will be able to generate all the bitcoins they want.
Imagine you have to run your computer 24/7 for a month to generate 1
cent. After a year, you could generate 12 cents. That's not going to
make it so people can just generate all the bitcoin they want for spending.
The value of bitcoins would be relative to the electricity consumed to
produce them. All modern CPUs save power when they're idle. If you run
a computational task 24/7, not letting it idle, it uses significantly
more power, and you'll notice it generates more heat. The extra wattage
consumed goes straight to your power bill, and the value of the bitcoins
you produce would be something less than that.
