The very essence of BTC got hurt

[CWestermark]

Sadly the very essence of BTC got hurt with the fall of MtGox. BTC was here so that people would not have to wory about loosing their funds. And here we are with similar crroks (Mark) as in the traditional banking system. And it does not get better when out BTC Jesus favours his friends at MtGox! He admits it in this youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRIJ_jpmwzo

So what are we left with? A volatile currency that is complicated to buy and hard to spend. Yes, every day we have more merchant accepting bitcoin. But why would a newcommer buy BTC so that he can save some money of his purchase at overstock? With all the hassle it does not make sense for him / her.

Yes, BTC will still stand, but sadly more as a speculative asset. And with far less intrinsic value (trust) in the system!

Hope I will be proven wrong becasue I still have 50% of my coins left.

[franky1]

we heard all these same stories with bitcoinica and pirate@40...

bitcoin did not get hurt. only users got hurt.
bitcoin does not have pain sensors or emotions.

the price however has not hurt bitcoin either. low prices are a great investment oppertunity. if users are losing by selling at a loss. then they should not have sold. nothing to do with bitcoin, but with human emotion especially panic.

drama will soon die down the FUD poking at the drama will slowdown as true facts appear. and those users that got hurt will either stop using bitcoin or start buying up some coin to ride the profitable waves to recoup.

in the end life moves on.

and as for the over use of the word intrinsic. that is a dead word from before the 19th century where bank IOU's were backed by gold and that gold has more then one use.

its a word that gold barons and banks love. but is meaningless to real people that know of many things that have value without it being intrinsic.

[Bitcoinpro]

Its had a net positive affect for users that did not lose money, and the customers may yet get their coin back

a) has brought the Crypto community out in force

b) shows once again the resilience of Crypto's

[Sheldor333]

Bitcoin is dying again. Just another day at the office, folks! 
http://reason.com/blog/2014/02/25/a-normal-day-for-bitcoin-a-currency-that

[TheAccountant]

Yep.  Those of us who see this for what it is, know it was a good thing to balance real life with crypto.  We are educating the investor, which is an awesome thing.

[dreamspark]

Ah shit run sell everything!!!


Oh wait I did that when we got goxxed the several times before.

The very essence of BTC doesn't include a central trusted third party...

[corebob]

Everything that has happened lately has been for the good in my opinion.
People need to understand what bitcoin is, and what it is not.

From a technical standpoint, I find bitcoin to work as expected.

Its sad that some people seems to have lost their investment, but it has been said over and over, you are responsible for your own coins. You are your own bank whether you like it or not.

This is not another Facebook. Don't expect anyone to hold your hand.

Regarding the current price of btc, I believe it is still somewhat too high, compared to bitcoins current adoption.

[ljudotina]

Very few "newcommers" got really hurt with mtgox...90% of ppl that got burned were traders that should have known better from summer 2013.

[keelba]

BTC was here so that people would not have to wory about loosing their funds.

Mt. Gox is/was an exchange and should never have been considered any type of "safe" storage or wallet. I only used Mt. Gox a few times but each time I put USD in as quickly as possible, made my trades, and took my bitcoin out. I never actually went the other direction. But, if I did, I would have put my bitcoin in, sold it, and taken my USD out as quickly as possible.

The problem here is that people got complacent and forgot about security and safe money handling principles. There were warning signs and red flags for months. I got an email from Mt. Gox I think it was around the beginning of December stating that in the next few weeks they were planning on shutting down Mt. Gox for several weeks while they updated their code. The first thing I did was login to make sure that my balances were emptied (by me). This should have been a red flag to everyone. If, after that point, you wanted to continue to trade on Mt. Gox, you should only have done so only with an amount you were prepared to lose.

Would anyone have been so careless with dollar bills? Imagine there was a place you could put your dollars and you could move dollars in and out as you pleased but there was always the possibility this place could close down and you would not have access to any dollars you had in there. Oh wait, these places do exist. We call them banks. And there is always the possibility that one could shut down (and there isn't enough money in FDIC to cover all of us). We need a different kind of currency, one that is immune to such bank runs. Oh wait, we have Bitcoin (and other virtual currencies). Bitcoin was not the problem here, it was the mentality of people trusting Mt. Gox (or any other institution) with their Bitcoin.

I feel bad for everyone who lost money to Mt. Gox, I truly do. But maybe this will underscore the need for protecting OUR OWN assets. People blamed the mortgage companies for giving them loans they couldn't afford. They blamed Bernie Madoff for taking their money without having done any research and having no clue what he was actually doing with it before handing it over. And people blame Mt. Gox for stealing their money even though they ignored all warning signs and left all their money with them. But how many people are taking personal responsibility?

In the end, I think the closing of Mt. Gox will be a very positive thing. Something new WILL come up and take its place. Necessity is the mother of invention and someone WILL come up with a safer, easier wallet for those technically challenged individuals. Others will find ways of educating individuals on how to properly handle this new type of currency. And someone will figure out a better way of bridging the gap between people's everyday currency that they're so used to and this new type of crypto currency. The Mt. Gox fiasco of 2014 takes us two steps back but we will take five steps forward as a result. Perhaps it will be one of those individuals who was fleeced who will take this as his motivation for making it happen and in the end make himself very wealthy as a result.

[Gabi]

Keep your funds in your own wallet and voilà you don't lose them, no matter what.

[andydabeast]

MY COINS have always been safely in my wallet. I am not selling a penny's worth with this low value. HOLD OUT!

[LiteCoinGuy]

Keep your funds in your own wallet and voilà you don't lose them, no matter what.

true words. but your OS must be clean then. so all in all its a long way to go. we need stuff like trezzor soon.

[Gabi]

Keep your funds in your own wallet and voilà you don't lose them, no matter what.

true words. but your OS must be clean then. so all in all its a long way to go. we need stuff like trezzor soon.

For now keep your funds in an offline pc and paperwallet done via the offline pc.
Yup, we need trezor, it is very useful.

[Gabi]

I totally disagree with the title, actually the very essence of BTC survived: if you have your funds in your wallet you DO NOT lose them, no matter what.

[mvdheuvel1983]

After this Gox debacle, how many BTC of all the BTC in existence have at some point been stolen from its previous owners?

I think 10 - 20% of all bitcoin economy are stolen coins.

Something to think about for all those idealistic people who see bitcoin as ultimate freedom, and the people who downplay the current events as "growing pains". And more of these events may follow.

"We", the bitcoin community, are in some way all money launderers and traders in stolen goods.

Talking about the essence of Bitcoin...

[franky1]

After this Gox debacle, how many BTC of all the BTC in existence have at some point been stolen from its previous owners?

I think 10 - 20% of all bitcoin economy are stolen coins.

Something to think about for all those idealistic people who see bitcoin as ultimate freedom, and the people who downplay the current events as "growing pains". And more of these events may follow.

"We", the bitcoin community, are in some way all money launderers and traders in stolen goods.

Talking about the essence of Bitcoin...

bitcoin didnt still bitcoins.. people did.

dont blame the protocol, blame the human desire for greed

[ChuckBuck]

Bitcoin doesn't have an essence, Bitcoin is simple math based code.

Only greedy people that were warned continuously by MtGox's insolvency and incompetent ways got hurt.

[raskul]

[DannyHamilton]

Sadly the very essence of BTC got hurt with the fall of MtGox. BTC was here so that people would not have to wory about loosing their funds. And here we are with similar crroks (Mark) as in the traditional banking system. And it does not get better when out BTC Jesus favours his friends at MtGox! He admits it in this youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRIJ_jpmwzo

So what are we left with? A volatile currency that is complicated to buy and hard to spend. Yes, every day we have more merchant accepting bitcoin. But why would a newcommer buy BTC so that he can save some money of his purchase at overstock? With all the hassle it does not make sense for him / her.

Yes, BTC will still stand, but sadly more as a speculative asset. And with far less intrinsic value (trust) in the system!

Hope I will be proven wrong becasue I still have 50% of my coins left.

Is given a tool that allows them to control their own digital money so they no longer need a bank to make digital payments.

Chooses to store that digital money in an uninsured, unregulated, non-audited bank (MtGox).

Complains that the bank that they chose to use behaved like a bank?

[FelixOliver]

What have we all learned from this debacle? ... If the coins aren't in YOUR own personal wallet (HD, Cold Storage, Paper Wall.. etc) - then you don't actually own them!... If more people actually took ownership of their coins, things like this wouldn't have any room to occur