> Money does not shift from new investors to the creators of Bitcoin. I'm not quite sure what confusion of ideas lead you to believe this.
Please explain how new investors obtain bitcoins, if not from the original members of the system (some of the early users have 1% of the total bitcoins, I recall hearing). Yes, there's mining, but that's not an effective way to transform money into bitcoins - I mean, say that I wanted 1000 bitcoins. Building an expensive new computer to mine and waiting for them to magically appear is not how I would go about it.
People obtain bitcoins by buying them from other people, who are typically miners or people who bought a lot of bitcoins early and want to cash out a proportion of their worth.
However, the people responsible for creating the bitcoin protocol only benefit financially if they sell their own bitcoins, or if an increase in demand raises the price bitcoins are trading at.
The Bitcoin economy is a free market; people can buy and sell bitcoins and will, and any profits they might make are entirely governed by supply and demand.
Please explain how new investors obtain bitcoins, if not from the original members of the system (some of the early users have 1% of the total bitcoins, I recall hearing). Yes, there's mining, but that's not an effective way to transform money into bitcoins - I mean, say that I wanted 1000 bitcoins. Building an expensive new computer to mine and waiting for them to magically appear is not how I would go about it.