Can you even charge someone for attempting to poison someone, when their chosen methods had no possibility of ever hurting anyone?

Sideshow Bob: Attempted murder? Now honestly, what is that? Do they give a Nobel prize for attempted chemistry?

That isn't what makes Bitcoin volatile. It is volatile because the market is so small. Which means that small players can cause large changes in the value by doing certain things. Sure, Bitcoins market cap is $1B USD, which sounds big, and it is for an individual. But in terms of the global economy its TINY. Once Bitcoin gets past $1T USD market cap its exchange rate will much more stable.

"Mining" is actually sort of a bad choice of word, because it implies that the purpose is to create the bitcoins. Its not. The purpose of mining is to verify the transactions and secure the blockchain. Bitcoins are given to miners as a reward for performing this service for the network.

And, as others have already said, this reward will gradually decrease until 21M coins are produced, at which point the miners reward will come entirely from the transaction fees instead.

One of my favourite bits from QI:

Alan Davies: Eight hundred Americans die in a McDonald's every year.
Rich Hall: Which one? Best to avoid that one.

I suspect you were trying to be funny, but you can actually do that.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Paper_wallet

No, they have all been relevant. This is just the first time you realized WHY.

This sort of thing is EXACTLY what the bitcoin creator was thinking about when it was being developed. Its *my* money. No one else should get to decide who I can send it to.

I never liked that Dr. Stupid.

Proprietor: Why don't you try W. H. Smith's?
Customer: I did, they sent me here.
Proprietor: DID they.