Both MtGox and Andresen pointed out that bugs were inevitable in a young, experimental product. Bitcoin, however, is already more than that -- the system's market cap reached $14.4 billion at its December 2013 peak.
I'm going to have to side with Mark and Gavin on this one: Bitcoin is indeed young and experimental. No part of the definitions of young or experimental preclude huge hype and billions of US dollars.
For outsiders, however, it looks increasingly as though Bitcoin should be viewed as an experiment...
Very good! You're learning. Let's review today's lesson; repeat after me:
Bitcoin is an experiment.