Various major, mainstream in this community exchanges, most well trusted, as well as 'Bets of Bitcoin', with BTC that were being stored there as well as BTC from recent bets, as well as many other good services. All disappeared and 'lost' everyone's coins.
If this is getting worse then it's so likely now that most new BTC holders are guaranteed to have there BTC stolen just by using any one highly trusted service, using good practice and care, and not see the coins again.
How is this supposed to resolve itself in an anarchistic way, if so where is the evidence that this is happening, if not then why not encourage an organization that organizations can, with a lot of effort, sign up to and get verified. This could also help protect the organization legally, the membership being able to be dropped immediately with bad or nonsense behavior.
just signing up to a 'verification' website to be awarded a title of honorable service is useless. as anyone can do this, even mark karpeles could have done this, then 6 months later steal all the coins, knowing the worst that happens is not being a member... whilst sipping his mocha-chino on the sunny beaches of japan
again signing up to a service is futile as services do not have much authority in law. it would however be 'possible' to get businesses to sign a contract in a court that binds a business to certain ethical standards of practice. whereby a bank / insurance company (unrelated to bitcoin) holds the businesses collateral on behalf of the customers. and the ethical contract is to pay the customers in the event of business insolvency.
the only issue is that even the most ethical business that puts 10% of its fee's into an insurance premium. there is the temptation to then steal customers wealth. knowing the insurance company will reimburse the customers. so the insurance policy and ethical contract needs to be written in such a way that the business is fully transparent with its accounts, regularly audits funds, has systems in-place to prevent outside theft and internal theft and makes the CEO fully accountable.
this is what is known in the fiat world as regulation.
so the big question is do we regulate bitcoin businesses? either using current government law, or private ethical contracts.
pre-empting some responses: most people think government regulation is only about AML because its the current 'hype' subject. prevention of illicit/terrorism funding is only part of government regulation, the other aspect is as described above concerning accountability, auditing and insurance.
so lets not make this into a AML argument. and stick with how to make businesses accountable and honorable
