[stinkytaco]

I think the argument is that there's nothing to stop this from happening all the time and maybe even perpetrated by the same people. Yes, scams happen, but there are repercussions and sometimes preventative measures even work. The Mt. Gox soap opera is not something that would occur in a regulated baking environment (at least in the US environment), but in bitcoin it's been dragged out for months (since it became a target of the US Government). It's bad publicity if nothing else.

I believe in bitcoin and its long term potential, but there is no question that lack of regulated exchanges will stunt its long term acceptance.

[pmorici]

"The Mt. Gox soap opera is not something that would occur in a regulated banking environment"

That just isn't true. Bernie Madoff got away with his outright ponzi scheme for nearly 10 years before being caught. Individuals expressed concern to the SEC about Madoff's investment fund as early as 1999. The SEC didn't do anything until 2009.

[jonknee]

In the end not much money was actually lost though. The huge losses you see in the headlines were mainly the fake gains. If you "invested" $1m with me for 10 years and I reported a 26% annual return you would have a $10m account on paper, but the gains never existed and as such were never stolen. People who withdrew their gains were sued and had to return the money.

The scam was told to be $65B, but the actual losses were ~$17B and they have recovered more than half that (over $9B). Additionally the IRS let the losses be written off, so you and I ended up picking up another half of that tab.

tl;dr it was an awfully large scam, but not nearly as large as most think. Less than half the value of an instant message client actually and only a few Instagrams.

[pmorici]

What's you point? The amount of money lost doesn't really have anything to do with regulation. people filed lawsuits to get their money back.

Good regulation implies preventing fraud through rigorous rules and monitoring before it happens or if it does before it gets out of hand to the point of needing to resort to the courts.

[bottled_poe]

Isn't he in jail now? And also, which individuals? We are lucky enough to live in a society where "expressing concern" is not sufficient to put someone in jail.

[pmorici]

Yes he is in jail, read the Wikipedia article for the details but basically people reported concerns to the SEC on 5 separate occasions beginning in 1999. The SEC ignored the complaints until Madof himself admitted to his sons in 2008 that it was a total ponzi and his own sons turned him in to the FBI. After he was arrested by the FBI in 2008 the SEC aka "the regulator" took action against him in 2009. Point is the regulator in charge didn't bother to investigate and didn't do anything.