Apparent Theft at Mt. Gox Shakes Bitcoin World

Economists have for a while been asking whether Bitcoin is a good store of value, for reasons ranging from demand to ease of entry. Now a bigger problem emerged: security. The Mt. Gox closedown is the biggest incident so far, but it is far from the first (see https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=83794.0#post_toc_17).

Even without the transaction malleability issue, I see one of the biggest attractiveness of Bitcoin—access to your money unfettered by government control—instinctively as a two-edged sword. If you want no one to monitor your actual identity, then no one is monitoring whoever-took-your-money’s either. As such, I really do not see why people would trust their private keys with service providers, but storing them privately is just as safe as putting your money under your mattress either.