One of the points of Bitcoin is that you become your own bank. But a lot of people ignored that and stored their coins on exchanges like Mt. Gox. The loss of funds to the collapse of Mt. Gox is a constant reminder not to do that.
(NOTE: Yes, storing coins on your own was certainly not easy. It's a tad easier now with hardware wallets, but there's a lot more to do. But everyone managing their own funds with their own private keys is still ultimately goal of Bitcoin.)
The collapse of Mt. Gox was one of the first, huge financial scandals in the Bitcoin ecosystem. It has made users more critical of trading platforms, which is always a good thing.
It was also a nice shock to the system for naive investors who weren't aware of the true risks of investing in volatile assets like Bitcoin.
Of course, Mt. Gox was also incredibly destructive to the Bitcoin ecosystem. So it's a bit like arguing that the Great Depression was the greatest thing to happen to the American economy.
> everyone managing their own funds with their own private keys is still ultimately goal of Bitcoin
No it isn't. The goal is to enable financial freedom, so that the people who want that level of control over their money can have it, but those who see benefits from having their money cared for, can do that too.
If I think I'll probably lose my bitcoin trying to store them myself, and that they're probably safer on Bitcoin Service X, I should be able to keep them there. I should also be aware of the tradeoffs.
Remember all those stories of people losing millions of dollars because they kept their crypto on hard drives? I know it's easier now, but it's still a lot of work. You can manage that work. Many people can't.
IMO the philosophy of Bitcoin is not "you should do things this way," but "it's important that people be able to do things this way, if they want to."
But the Mt Gox event did help make it clear that people should be selective about how they store their money.
> No it isn't. The goal is to enable financial freedom, so that the people who want that level of control over their money can have it, but those who see benefits from having their money cared for, can do that too.
Sorry, bad phrasing on my part. Perhaps it's better said as "Enabling people to be their own bank is one of the goals of Bitcoin."
Of course, financial freedom is the umbrella goal of Bitcoin, you're right. Part of that is making it possible to be your own bank. Importantly, that means making it _easy_ to be your own bank. We want it to be as easy for the average person to manage their coins themselves, as it is to manage USD at a bank. That way, even though users are free to use centralized services, there should be no reason to.
It was once the defacto exchange and wallet manager for bitcoin. I believe the statistics were that 90% of all transactions happened on the exchange. In fact, once they pulled the server for maintenance, the price of bitcoin plummeted.
After it's collapse, a void was created for other exchanges to rise. A more balanced system ensued.
