Thanks for your rapid reply, yogi!
Then here's another question:
I've read that some people on MtGox are waiting on payouts for months now.*
But that particular "payout problem" seems to have been only about US fiat payouts. Why or how were people continuing to trade, when there was a payout problem for such a long time?
This is well known to those of us that frequent the forum. The answer to your question is we don't know. I can speculate though:
In my experience most bitcoin owners don't frequent this forum and things that are common knowledge here are alien to them. So these were the people trading on Mt. Gox. Proof of this is the fact that the MSM had been quoting Gox prices up until the latest crisis. Even the fact that fiat withdrawals were blocked for months didn't filter through to them.
That's really interesting observation about the relationship between the fact that most bitcoiners don't frequent this forum and their willing to make a deal with MtGox.