Quote from: trebronics on August 14, 2010, 10:49:33 PM
A lot of people are generating them at zero cost by using their employer’s computer. It’s unfair to the employer, but it is the reason why bitcoins will continue to generate.
This is a good point. I don’t think I underestimated people’s ability to generate bitcoins efficiently and legitimately - the difficulty adjustment does a good job of compensating for that, and that makes it a non-issue in my scenario. But I probably underestimated the effect of minters using other people’s resources without their knowledge and consent. The FAQ theorizes that the cost of minting will approach the price of electricity minus a thin profit margin, and I probably accepted that theory too uncritically. If resource theft becomes the primary way to finance bitcoin minting, flaws in the difficulty adjustment will have a more subtle impact.