... But damn, when do you ever hear of a 500 MILLION DOLLAR THEFT in the real world? Blows my mind!
This has affected a lot of bitcoin users too. I for one lost all but 2btc of my holdings thanks to mtgox (and 50btc). Not only did I lose a fair amount of confidence but I am also no longer a strong holder of coins anymore. With no fiat to buy back in again I just feel like an outsider looking into the bitcoin world. I'm sure I'm not the only one.
1. Usually you don't hear about $500 million nationally or around the world. Usually it takes a lot more. Madoff took $18-65 Billion. Banks take billions in bailouts.
2. You lost confidence? In what, your ability to protect your coins with a non-exchange wallet? Losing confidence in bitcoin is like saying you lost confidence in the Euro because the convenience store was robbed.
No one likes the fact that Mt Gox was either incompetent or criminal, but with the Euro/Dollar/Yen/Yuan, you KNOW that every year someone is going to be stealing money from you via inflation, bail-outs, and bail-ins. At least with bitcoin, you have the ability to protect yourself - provided you don't use an exchange as a bank.
Remember: if you don't have the private keys, you don't own bitcoin, you have an IOU from someone else.
:-)
Sorry you got gox'd