IMO to bootstrap the first cryptocoin you had to solve lots of problems that aren't present for subsequent ones. What if people merely tried it out - download

IMO to bootstrap the first cryptocoin you had to solve lots of problems that aren't present for subsequent ones. What if people merely tried it out - download for a week, do some mining and then delete it? That could have made the network very unstable in its genesis, which discourage developers and users from taking Bitcoin seriously. It makes some sense to reward early adopters who invest time, energy and cycles. On a related note - I don't think proof-of-stake would have worked for bitcoin. First of all, equitable distribution is a big deal and mining can do that but PoS by itself can't. But if you solved that problem I still think you would have a harder time convincing people that there was any value in a staker's signature, and whether it makes sense to trust transactions secured "only" by stake.