I have to disagree with all those that think alts are/can be/will be lumped together with Bitcoin.
In fact I think the opposite is true: most people see Bitcion and that is it. Very few people even know of the alts at all. If an alt is destroyed it is not even news worthy. If they know about alts then they have "Bitcoin" and "all those others I do not care about".
All the alts can burn each other to the ground and the general public will not care or even know about it.
Even within this forum, which is not Bitcoin, most people totally ignore all the alts and are only upset by having to skip over all the alt threads when scanning over what interests them. You expect the public at large to care about them?
I think not.
I agree 100%. Thats why I said "If it happens to make mainstream media that person X lost amount Y". Its an outside shot, but all it takes is it to happen once. Maybe someone with friends in the media, or someone with enough cash to cause a stir, or any other number of reasons. Sure, its not likely anyone outside this forum knows of or gives a shit about PWC, but that doesn't mean it will be the case for the next coin on the list. Eventually someone who perhaps took some advice on investing in an alt instead of btc, would get burned by this, and that'd be enough.
Would it be their own fault for not being knowledgeable enough about their own investments? Obviously, but the PR about a crypto-currency being hacked is what would count.