sht this looks bad. This is could diminish the trust on the system on the long run.
Maybe at this point we need security companies getting involved in bitcoins security and banking. A lot of people wouldn't mind paying extra, knowing that their account is not gonna get hacked, or somebody is gonna rob their computer and lose everything.
Noshit it looks bad, it was enough to completely diminish my trust in the system, and i've been bitcoin enthusiast since december. Imagine how "attractive" this looks for someone who considers to invest. If this happened in december when i discovered bitcoin i'd certainly run far away from here.
We don't need "banking", there is no way to track funds to a person anyway (we can track the block explorer yes but that's it, it may be a thiefs account and it may be someone who pretends to be a victims 2nd wallet). What's needed is better security, until then i'm taking most of my bitcoin savings far away from bitcoin.
The issue is not with Bitcoin. It is perfectly possible for someone to set up a Bitcoin bank, that has insurance against theft etc, just like "conventional" banks. The issue here lies with Mt. Gox, which is only a single independent exchange. Bitcoin itself (as an idea and protocol) is technically sound. The only thing I am missing is wallet encryption in the client by default, but that can be overcome for now by storing a wallet on a machine that is not connected to the internet, using third-party encryption software.
Bitcoin is much like digital cash, with the difference that you can encrypt a Bitcoin wallet, while you can't encrypt an IRL wallet.