[Levin]

It's a lot of calculations without any purpose. And the calculations are not even complex, just stepping through a a number and then hashing them with other details so as to achieve another very small number.

Yeah, I find this a waste of resources too. But if there are too few steps, too many bitcoins will be created. Creating bitcoins from thin air is bad but I think they don't want it to be really bad so they purposely go through that many calculations to slow down the creation, I think.