I cannot even imagine being totally out. Every man needs his untouchable paper wallet. The feeling of being 100% out has to be unbearable even for the biggest bear
I guess it is a bit different if you mined. I casually mine LTC (2.5/day) and I don't even care about their price, shorting them etc. The mindset changes completely once you buy virtual currency.
Still I can't bear (LOL) being 100% out. Feels too risky. Infrastructure is fragile and having all the eggs in one basket (fiat on exchanges) seems kinda reckless to me. A paper wallet with some long-term holdings feels good. I expect the price to go down, thus 100% fiat to buy cheaper would be more profitable, but I may be wrong, or Gox may be running fractional reserve and go bust at some point (unlikely, but are you willing to bet your right hand on it? Not worth the risk).
I guess I'm too emotionally attached to my BTC
I'd choose having my money in fiat on one of these exchanges over having my money in BTC... BTC might crash at any given point and fuck you over completely when it catches you off guard. And how exactly would mtgox run fractional reserve, only banks can do that... Given the amount of money that's being traded on Gox (millions), i'd say we're pretty safe... It wouldn't be easy to get away with theft of that magnitude.
Wow, I trust much more my BTC than fiat on an exchange. I'm trading, but I feel more comfortable holding my private keys than trusting a third party with my money. It's pretty much the whole point of Bitcoin. Anyhow, I accept and manage the risks involved in trusting my money to a third party - Gox and Bitstamp for example, and I proceed trying to factor all the risks. Thus, I won't trust all my "BTC money" to a third party, I prefer to keep some savings in BTC no matter what is the exchange rate.
Calle me hard-core believer, geek, rptard, but it's pretty much how it is
The thing is, since these exchanges operate within legal boundaries and the owners are known and probably documented by law enforcement agencies, we are somewhat safeguarded if our fiat were be stolen or abused by the owners of the exchange. There are systems in place in the real world which would combat criminal endeavours to steal our fiat. Bitcoin has none of those. It might all turn to shit tomorrow, that's the harsh truth of it all, and you wouldn't be able to do a damn thing to prevent it. Your coins might even get stolen from the exchange, and you wouldn't be able to do squat. You might be a "bitcoin believer", but i prefer to be realistic about this whole thing, and i think that's the smart thing to do as well instead of putting blind faith into all of this.
i bought again