Hearn: The resolution of the Bitcoin experiment

"In case of Bitcoins the only way to guarantee scarcity is to make it hard to mine new coins. It's a distributed system, there's no other way."

Mostly I agree with this but there is one key bit that I think is over-simplified. It's called mining but the activity is not actually creating Bitcoins. The miners are calculating signatures for the blockchain, so that the transactions are publicly logged and irrefutable. As a reward for this activity, the miners are awarded newly created Bitcoins. These Bitcoins are literally created from 'nothing' at a consensually agreed rate. Once all possible Bitcoins are created, the same 'mining' activity will take place but the miners will be awarded Bitcoins from the fees charged to the transactions.

And I hope that I won't be embarrassed by having got this wrong :D