Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency par excellence, has some special characteristics that justify the accelerated race to dominate the mining industry. When Satoshi Nakamoto published the white paper on October 31, 2008, he laid out critical conditions for the future of the coin. The most-significant characteristic that is intrinsic to Bitcoin is its scarcity. The supply would be limited to 21 million Bitcoins. The difficulty in mining BTC would increase and the reward would decrease steadily over time. By imposing these conditions, Satoshi Nakamoto intended to emulate the processes of extracting scarce materials throughout ... (full story)