The system is set up to only allow a certain number of coins to come into existence over time. There is a difficulty target which recalculates about every two weeks to see whether the difficulty should rise or be lowered. A single retarget never changes by more than a factor of 4 to prevent large changes in difficulty.

If some entity with unlimited resources tried to "mine all the bitcoins" they would first go up against the existing network, which is already record breaking in terms of collective computing power. Even if they met or exceeded that hash power that wouldn't guarantee they won all blocks/coins because that happens like a lottery. Just because you have 10 lottery tickets to my 5 doesn't mean you're guaranteed I won't win and you will.

In the meantime word would get out about the massive effort to bring down Bitcoin which of course strengthens Bitcoin. In a race to harness the most computing power it would be essentially those who control the world versus those who actually make up the world. Which side do you think wins?

i like the way you put that.

My thought exactly. There is an easy way for them to deal with bitcoin, all they have to do is buy them all and erase the wallets.

But alt currencies are like potato chips, we'll make more.

Yes, yes and yes! We're on the same wavelength here.

However to be fair, after doing a bit of research on the author, he's but a pup—a former frat boy still chasing his UC law degree, participating in every godforsaken lawyer "society" group that'll have him... let's call him a "fascist-scumbag-in-training," at least until his balls drop.

That would achieve nothing at all. I am not going to sell all of my coins, and even 1 satoshi left accessible in the whole universe is enough to sustain any possible economy - will require just one hard fork to allow for more divisibility.

Actually it would, but it would take time. If they bought every coin inexistance, or close to it and insured that they would never be circulated again. Once all the coins are mined, there could be so few transactions that nobody would bother mining for just transaction fees.

What is everyone talking about?  This is a nothing paper, written by a non-entity Prof jr., who isn't associated in any way with IMF.  Bitcoin's not on IMF radar -- it appears in a paper to be published in "Chicago Journal of International Law ("CJIL") is a semiannual, student-edited law review published by the University of Chicago Law School since spring 2000."  In other words, Bitcoin makes it into a school rag.
Everyone:  you still got time to ebay your gamer boxen before jackbooted law students kick down your door.
 

You can't argue with his logic.