I don't need reassurance, but not everyone thinks like this. My solution was selling BTC enough to pay for my initial investment. For all purposes, I'm just playing with funny money now. Does anyone just see btc solely as an investment rather than a currency? I'd be happy to see people buying more tangible goods with it, but I feel like it has to "mature" a bit before it reaches that point.

Thanks AnonyMint, this was very informative. 

It doesn't seem completely impossible, does it? How many of you would panic and sell whatever you had in your wallets? What would you do?

...maybe this isn't a problem for you. why/why not?
Obviously "Hurr I don't use mt.gox or coinbase"/"I only have BTC in these places immediately before a transaction takes place" is a given, but I was hoping for some more in-depth discussion on this.

Done.

59.89
18x8DfzcZeN8bnPcN5qDrZ862JmGCDjmbu

Fun, but are you gathering btc addresses for some reason?  

New to Bitcoin & just looking for a centralized place for news, idle chatter and speculation.

Did anyone else experience this? I find it mildly suspicious that this happened right as Bitcoin hits a record high. I'm not very suspicious, as I imagine their servers were very taxed, but I could see it as a ploy to keep the price growing while people can't sell. If not that then my respect for them is still a little sullied if their servers have issues like this at critical moments. Does anyone else have thoughts on the matter?