Bitcoin will survive the fall of Mt Gox. I am certain of this, as the businesses surrounding many new technologies stumble in their infancy.
A much bigger threat to the long-term viability of Bitcoin is hacking, and the reduction in mind share that results from hacking claims.
I have several Bitcoims on coinbase, and I am offloading them all into cold storage until sites like coinbase give a guarantee that if you use all of their security measures, theft of coins will be reimbursed back to the victim.
I am a high-tech user, I used to factor authentication on my account and my backup email account, along with random long nonrepeating unrecognizable passwords. But I'm in like the 1%.
We need websites like Coinbase to have official policies on theft, otherwise savoy users won't store their coins there, and less savvy users won't dabble in Bitcoin at all. This has to be the next big change, or this thing will die on the vine!
you cant hack bitcoin. you can however hack services ontop of bitcoin or con people out of funds. but when it comes to bitcoins whether an innocent user owns them or a scam artist owns them, in the end they are all people, and bitcoins have not been destroyed, only changed hands. same as when you buy something at the bitcoin store. it simply changes hands.
when it comes to investing, smart investors know the difference between bitcoins strengths, and users weaknesses so even when they read that USERS have lost their coins. they know that its not bitcoins fault.
bitcoins has a fixed amount and in the end it does not matter who's hands it is in or how it was obtained, bitcoin wont die. price drops are not a death of bitcoin, but a buying oppertunity for new users. this cycle will repeat again and again for many years.
the best advice is to not panic over the daily drama of bitcoin users (personal and business) but to look at the long term picture.
in 2012 bitcoin went from over $30, down to $14 and then down to $6, purely because of drama in the media (silkroad, bitcoinica&pirate).. but now look at it.
bitcoin drama will just keep circling, yet bitcoin will never die.
