One billion franks. None sold, none reserved, none held back for anyone. Every frank that will ever exist has to be mined first.
The program holds its own mint authority. No person — including the developer — can bring a frank into being by signing for it. The only thing it accepts is work.
Your machine looks for a number. Hashed together with your wallet and a challenge only you hold, it has to come out beginning with enough zeros. There is no shortcut and no cleverness available. The only method is to keep looking.
When your machine finds one, the program checks the work, issues the reward, and rolls your challenge forward. The proof you just spent is worthless a second later.
Speed stops mattering quickly. A wallet may claim once per cooldown however fast it searched, so a laptop finds as much as a room full of hardware. That is deliberate.