Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Why are we bleeding nodes?

From: Mike Hearn <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2014 16:05:34 +0200

>
> My guess is that a large number of users have lost interest after they
> lost their money in MtGox. The 24th of February coincides with the
> "final" shutdown

Sigh. It would not be surprising if MtGox has indeed dealt the community a
critical blow in this regard. TX traffic is down since then too:

https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions-excluding-popular?timespan=60days&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=

Judging from comments and the leaked user db, it seems a lot of well known
people lost money there   (not me fortunately). I wish I could say people
have learned but from the size of the deposit base at Bitstamp they clearly
have not. A lot of Bitcoin users don't seem to be ready to be their own
bank, yet still want to own some on the assumption everyone else either is
or soon will be. So it's really only a matter of time until something goes
wrong with some large bitbank again, either Bitstamp or Coinbase.

Some days I wonder if Bitcoin will be killed off by people who just refuse
to use it properly before it ever gets a chance to shine. The general
public doesn't distinguish between "Bitcoin users" who deposit with a third
party and the real Bitcoin users who don't.