Yes, I think bit coins would become popular even without mining because the supply of bit coins *is* fixed even now. They are just contractually obligated to future block generation.
I obviously disagree, but it is a point that can only be proven empirically.
Thus, the creator of the currency is choosing to reward those who contribute with "shares" of his currency stock and thus early adopters are speculating on the future value by *investing* in bitcoin stock.
Your point is well made, but I want to suggest that talking about bitcoins as "stock" is risky semantically. There are lots of agencies that investigate fraud in such areas. It is common for scammers to tout their schemes as "shares" in an "investment opportunity". Metaphors show intention. It is intention that gets people locked up. I know you don't think of this as a scam. But it is wise not to share terminology with scammers.
If there was a bitcoin company and its goal was to make money by providing a service. And it sold shares that inherently increased in value based upon profit from customer's paying the company for that service. Then you could call justifiably call it stock. But you can't form a company whose business is SOLELY to sell the company's stock. And tout that if you buy the stock early, the people who come later will want to pay you more for that stock because it is a limited commodity.
Trust me. Doing that is "a bad thing." :-)
I think it was a smart decision to pay people to provide the bootstrapping CPU time.
It was a brilliant decision! I've said that in another thread.
But sometimes brilliant bootstrapping decisions can lead to hamstrung growth decisions. We disagree about this, but the truth will eventually play out empirically.
So the question you have to ask yourself is, what other "means" could a creator of a bitcoin like system use to encourage adoption?
I wrote on this in this post, but it got buried by a flippant comment about relative wealth. I would appreciate some comment on it.
http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=75.msg7603#msg7603I suspect that the porn-industry could take this technology to enable their customers to be more anonymous by having them by BTC from them and once bought allowing them to trade among themselves and others. Thus, it is not the mining that makes BTC valuable or popular.
I think the porn-industry could find value here. However, for that to benefit the bitcoin system as a whole, there needs to be something the porn-industry could spend their new BTC on BESIDES dollars. Maybe hosting. Maybe an associates program that pays for referrals in BTC. Then coins would be in the hands of more people in exchange for actual services rendered. More coin holders opens more possibilities for people to sell random commodities for BTC. That would create a real BTC economy of both coins and commodities/services circulating.
If the majority of people just buy BTC for dollars, then spend them anonymously on porn, and the porn industry sells the coins back for dollars; then you have "a money transfer service" which cries out for the regulators to attack.