[IanCal]

It's been done, repeatedly.

The problem is you need to get other people to use it and buy it, that's the tricky bit. You're making a huge assumption with this:

"3. Wait for a while as prices for your currency rises."

You'll need to get it used enough that someone puts it on an exchange, or otherwise convince people to give you money.

To make huge amounts of money, you need to convince either lots of people, or a few really rich people.

It's also potentially illegal.

[machilin]

Agreed. But the way, I see it there are a lot of coins you might not have heard of, novacoin, terracoin... Nobody ever buys anything with them, but their prices are on the rise. As long as you make it, people will want it.

[IanCal]

"Nobody ever buys anything with them, but their prices are on the rise."

But you've already picked the successful few out, lots of other coins never got to that point.

However, the fact that you're designing a scam makes this whole thing a lot easier to answer:

The thing that is stopping me is that I'm not a scumbag. I don't want to trick people out of their money.