I have no idea where 'counterfeit miner' even comes into this. If you're the best at mining, you get the most coins. That's not controversial, it's a decentralised system, who would even be deeming you counterfeit? Were the first ASICs 'counterfeit'?
Exactly, so I'm demonstrating that Bitcoins are printed out of thin air by doing some arithmetic. The fact that a concept of "counterfeit" doesn't even exist demonstrates that ALL of them are printed out of thin air. You don't need to pan for gold, you don't need to save a kitten, nothing. All you need is to punch some numbers into a GPU or ASIC and voila you have thin air printed Bitcoin.
As opposed to USD, where the person who has the most coins isn't the one who can print a physical dollar bill most efficiently. There is a notion of counterfeit, there is centralized governance, and thin air printing is not allowed at the threat of arrest by that governance.
Besides, why is panning for gold or saving a kitten fundamentally any different? A difficult physical process must take place, the fact it happens to be digital does not make it magic, despite how complex these devices may seem.
> Sure you can. If your "counterfeit miner" secretly works 1000X faster than the miners everyone uses
You can in theory but not in practice. The person you're responding to was talking about practice, not theory. Practice is what matters in this case.
Sure you can. If your "counterfeit miner" secretly works 1000X faster than the miners everyone uses, you can still most certainly say "here is my Bitcoin" and it will be usable.
If the hashes you generate are indistinguishable from the hashes generated by an AntMiner, you have made Bitcoin out of thin air.
Yes, creating such a "counterfeit miner" would involve technological feats. But that shouldn't be the deciding factor here. It's still a PoW coin and assuming you are a super-powered genius hardware inventor with an insanely advanced lab, you can do the work much more efficiently without anyone knowing. And the coins would be actually legal to use.
Which is VASTLY different from USD in that if you have a secret lab to create USD bills that are indistinguishable from the real thing, it's still illegal.
With Bitcoin, it's still decentralized, i.e. printed out of thin air. If the coins you generate work with the system, they're legal and valid, it doesn't matter how you generate them or how much work you really did.