Is Bitcoin safe to use?

[Ellen Mara]

Is Bitcoin still as safe at it used to be? Tokyo isn’t the only place affected. Apparantly the Mt.Gox bankruptcy has had a major effect on the Indian sub-continent as well. A jolting shock struck them as Crores of Rupees held by have vanished overnight. The thread shows the article published by the Indian newspaper on the issue. The total lost is estimated to be around 10-20 crores.
http://www.indiatvnews.com/business/india/indians-lose-crores-in-bitcoins-as-japan-exchange-goes-kaput--10450.html

[OnkelPaul]

When a company goes bankrupt (or whatever the Mt.Gox situation might be called), its customers lose money.
In the case of Mt.Gox which acted world wide there were customers all over the world, naturally, so this affected India as well.
However, this is not a failure of bitcoin (just as the failure of Lehman Brothers was not a failure of the dollar), but a failure of a company which acted irresponsibly and did not protect its customer's assets.

Of course, such an event has repercussions in the bitcoin world, and it is hard to predict where bitcoin exchange rate will be in 6 months or so.
But bitcoin has never been a safe investment - if you buy bitcoins and hold them for a year, you never know whether you get 200% or 2000% profit :-)
The only time during which you got less than 20% or even a negative result was when you bought between May and August 2011 and sold exactly a year later - in these cases, waiting another year would have resulted in a pretty handsome ROI, but of course, hidsight is 20/20.

The main thing to remember is that only bitcoins you hold in your wallet are actually your bitcoins, and their safety depends on how well you protect them.

Onkel Paul

[fryarminer]

Not any more secure than gold would be after pirates steal a boatload of gold.

It doesn't affect bitcoin at all. Just protect your bitcoin like you would protect gold. Don't leave 4000BTC with ANY exchange or ANY pool or ANY wallet that you don't have full control over. Get cold storage.

[Buffer Overflow]

Remember MtGox also owes a ton of fiat money as well. But nobody questions if fiat is still safe anymore.

[R0yalAir]

Bitcoin has still been safe.
However the troubles come from exchange markets.

[PangPang]

To be honest, people need to learn and stop storing their bitcoin on an exchange.

[durrrr]

To be honest, people need to learn and stop storing their bitcoin on an exchange.

Exactly right, if people learned that their coins are only 100% safe when they are completly in your hands  or possession. just like real money unless someone says its backed and your getting your money back theres always a chance of you losing your investment or money. but exchanges cant be insurreed ya know

[crocko]

According to IRS, nope 

[roslinpl]

Is Bitcoin still as safe at it used to be? Tokyo isn’t the only place affected. Apparantly the Mt.Gox bankruptcy has had a major effect on the Indian sub-continent as well. A jolting shock struck them as Crores of Rupees held by have vanished overnight. The thread shows the article published by the Indian newspaper on the issue. The total lost is estimated to be around 10-20 crores.
http://www.indiatvnews.com/business/india/indians-lose-crores-in-bitcoins-as-japan-exchange-goes-kaput--10450.html

Is money safe to use? Is getting a bank account is 100% safe?

There will be many issues with Bitcoin, but it will get safer and safer and if you are responsible and you will do what is the best to keep Bitcoin safe you should be happy Bitcoiner forever

There always will be some problems ...

[Tonka Branded Truck]

Is Bitcoin still as safe at it used to be? Tokyo isn’t the only place affected. Apparantly the Mt.Gox bankruptcy has had a major effect on the Indian sub-continent as well. A jolting shock struck them as Crores of Rupees held by have vanished overnight. The thread shows the article published by the Indian newspaper on the issue. The total lost is estimated to be around 10-20 crores.
http://www.indiatvnews.com/business/india/indians-lose-crores-in-bitcoins-as-japan-exchange-goes-kaput--10450.html

What do you mean? Bitcoin is still safe. Mtgox is not Bitcoin and Bitcon is not Mtgox and Nothing will Happen to Bitcoin without Mtgox.

[bitcasino]

You can trust bitcoin, you can't trust humans 

[silamb]

If we use bitcoin wisely it is safe. Never put all your eggs in one basket.Don't keep all your bitcoins in exchanges.

[softron]

If u take steps to protect ur keys from hackers, ur bitcoins should remain safe.

[durrrr]

Bitcoin is safe to use. just make sure that you encrypt your wallet and use a passphrase thats very protected . but i guess the only real way for your bitcoins to be safe would be on  a device thats not connected to the internet and not used for anyhting else this is cold storage

[roslinpl]

If u take steps to protect ur keys from hackers, ur bitcoins should remain safe.

Indeed. Perhaps in next 5 years all of us will have trezor, so this is IMO safest way to storage bitcoins with possibility to use it like a normal wallet.

Till now we can say there are so many ways to lose Bitcoins, but year by year it will get better, and we just need to follow safety instructions and do not worry too much

(easy to say when you have <0.5BTC ) - but, if I will have a lot of BTC I will just make some cold wallet

[kevindurant]

Bitcoin is always safe to use. Just educate yourself, you don't have to fear anything.

[RodeoX]

Bitcoin is the safest way to buy things over the net. However if you are unsafe in your practices then you could still get got. Just make sure you have total and exclusive control of your private keys.

[vnvizow]

Don't use online wallets and don't get scammed, these are the only 'unsafe' things about bitcoin, but it has been 5 years and nothing really bad has happened and I hope it stays that way

[BitcoinTribune]

Just stay to the safe sources, like coinbase, blockchain, bistamp etc. It might be tempting to deviate but dont!

[silvestar]

Just stay to the safe sources, like coinbase, blockchain, bistamp etc. It might be tempting to deviate but dont!

I wouldn't call exchanges (like coinbase and bitstamp) a safe place to store bitcoin, as you don't have the private keys.