I sometimes have a hard time getting across my point because of my convoluted writing style. Apologies for that.
Here's my point, ultra condensed: Mtgox shutdown (in whatever form it'll happen) *does* matter. No question about that. But the question is *how* it will matter on which time frame.
Short term, it certainly will depress price (and did so already, yesterday for example). But I caution anyone who believes to know with certainty that it will depress prices for a long time. There are several plausible interpretation scenarios that will make mtgox closure *positive* in the long run, just like we know think of the SR closure as (obviously) a good thing.
Note that I'm personally not *sure* if mtgox closure will be seen as positive in the long run, but I see the real possibility for it. The market will ultimately decide, and I just mention the possibility that, in a year from now, we'll talk again about mtgox and everyone will go "Well, d'uh, of course it was good news. The worst run exchange in the BTC ecoystem *finally* went down. That's what brought us to the new ATH of 6000."
Easier to agree with you here. The important question is not yet answered,
how will the fall of gox be played out. Will there be a bail-out where gox will be bought and the customers will get what they're owed, or will it just be a bankruptcy with all the money magically disappeared.
The first option isn't easy. It would be a noble act if someone invested so much, just to save the integrity of the market, but it does have it's risks. For instance, what stops another exchange from repeating what gox did and by that nullifying previous attempts to save the integrity of the market? Only solution that I can see, is some kind of an self-regulatory system that will separate trustworthy exchanges from the shadowy ones.
I agree, that right now you can't speculate the future, because there is no solid information to speculate the future on. Fall of gox could be a good way to show integrity and responsibility around bitcoin, but it could also make it lose all of it's existing positive halo.