At the time of the SR closure, the absolutely *dominant* sentiment among the pundits in here was that it will greatly depress price. Anyone who said differently was shouted down. Took a few days, and that sentiment very clearly changed.
I think "the pundits here" mostly have no clue what they are talking about or they are just plain out lying. Most of the things I say here get shouted down. For instance, if you currently say that MtGox demise is important, then you will probably get shouted down by the majority
So, to translate it to the current day situation: yes, I compare the two events in the sense that, at face value, you might naively say "oh, it's going to keep price down for months to come".
In reality, it will probably throw price down for some days, maybe weeks. And then, gradually, it'll be seen differently, as extremely good news.
It's really hard to understand your point. You are telling me, that because of the people here didn't see the SR demise as unimportant, then MtGox demise is also unimportant? Well, I just don't see the logic in that.
Just a few of those reasons, just from the top of my head: (1) the formerly largest exchange was run amateurishly, and was punished accordingly. (2) cheap mtgox coins that would have otherwise flooded the market are now unavailable to arbitrage down the price. (3) Mtgox investors will look to "replace" their coins (not all of them, of course. But those who *do* want to replace them will have to buy them again.
Questions that pop into my head: (1) Are the other exchanges honest or will they repeat the history of gox? (2) How can I know which exchange is honest and which is just building confidence for final strike (3) Could bitcoin be just a tool for those exchange owners to scam the general public?
These are serios questions that will be left unanswered and therefor will create distrust and uncertainty. For instance, I myself, am not as comfortable holding fiat in stamp as I was couple of months ago.
The demise of SR only hurt the BTC drug market, while the demise of MtGox will hurt the integrity of the entire bitcoin market system.
I sometimes have a hard time getting across my point because of my convoluted writing style. Apologies for that.
Here's my point, ultra condensed: Mtgox shutdown (in whatever form it'll happen) *does* matter. No question about that. But the question is *how* it will matter on which time frame.
Short term, it certainly will depress price (and did so already, yesterday for example). But I caution anyone who believes to know with certainty that it will depress prices for a long time. There are several plausible interpretation scenarios that will make mtgox closure *positive* in the long run, just like we know think of the SR closure as (obviously) a good thing.
Note that I'm personally not *sure* if mtgox closure will be seen as positive in the long run, but I see the real possibility for it. The market will ultimately decide, and I just mention the possibility that, in a year from now, we'll talk again about mtgox and everyone will go "Well, d'uh, of course it was good news. The worst run exchange in the BTC ecoystem *finally* went down. That's what brought us to the new ATH of 6000."