Quote from: balaks on November 23, 2013, 09:07:52 PM

Does the amount of coinage you can generate for yourself via mining go up or down depending on the current value of the currency?

This is determined by the 'difficulty' of the coin, which fluctuates depending on the rate at which people mine it. The value of the coin is somewhat correlated with difficulty - coins that are harder to mine have a better value, which is why coins that pay out lots of rewards are worth the least upon starting. This is a basic principle and there lots of other factors that influence the coin's worth too, like the release, community reception etc. Have a gander at http://www.coinchoose.com/ and note the patterns between the number of blocks, coin reward, difficult, and BTC worth