Users of this forum had no sympathy for those who suffered huge Gox loses (the general attitude was "we knew better, serves you right") and the idea that Gox may have impacted on the 'unwashed' does seem to have completely been forgotten by most here.
People who lost money on Gox had no sympathy for the people who tried to warn them for
years that if they didn't hold the private keys they didn't actually have any bitcoins in spite of being attacked and ridiculed by the shills of whatever service was getting ready to scam their users next.
At some point maybe if the unwashed masses aren't willing to do their own research they don't deserve to hold bitcoins yet.
That's not how it works...
Agreed, there were plenty of signs that gox was in big trouble. Whoever saw that huge-ass thread about delayed withdrawals and still kept sending funds there was kind of asking for it.
But the other point, "if you don't hold the private keys, you deserve what you get" is practically useless as a guideline. How are we supposed to get those precious coins, if not through an exchange? Not everyone's cut out to be a miner, or do semi-shady OTC deals.
Point is, as long as centralized exchanges are the best option we have to get our hands on bitcoins, we will have to have a slightly more nuanced view on them, in my opinion: ideally, get your funds out of the exchange as soon as you can, but general heuristics apply as well (how trustworthy do the exchange owners appear? where is it registered? are there delayed withdrawals, fiat or btc?)
Does that make any sense?
