Earlier quoted context omitted.
We need digital currencies that can only ever be mined efficiently with a CPU, and there need to be many more blocks with lower rewards so that people don't need to join pools if they don't want to. They need to be able to earn "something" (not zero) even with a low-end CPU or when the difficulty gets too great, and close to the point of reaching the maximum number of coins. I think there weren't even 10 percent Bitc…
Why is mining necessary in a digital currency? There are plenty of other solutions to creation/distribution of tokens.
A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution. Digital signatures provide part of the solution, but the main benefits are lost if a trusted third party is still required to prevent double-spending. We propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network. The network timestamps transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain of hash-based proof-of-work, forming a record that cannot be changed without redoing the proof-of-work. The longest chain not only serves as proof of the sequence of events witnessed, but proof that it came from the largest pool of CPU power. As long as a majority of CPU power is controlled by nodes that are not cooperating to attack the network, they'll generate the longest chain and outpace attackers.