> Bitcoin is getting stronger and proving to consumers and businesses it is not going away.<p>That's all well and good, but as a consumer, I want some level of protection. With credit cards and my bank account, if some entity (myself included) makes stupid decisions and causes me to lose money due to digital theft, my credit card/bank will often take care of the issue.<p>With BitCoin, and the failure of Mt. Gox, consumers have no recourse (at least as far as I can tell).<p>EDIT TO ADD:<p>I'm not sure what problems BitCoin solves for me, as a consumer. I hate that PayPal can "lock" me out of my account, so I don't use it. BankOfAmerica, can, but usually will only do so for extreme circumstances (ie asset seizing and forfeiture).<p>I hate that Banks charge a fee for the privilege of storing my money in it, but there are enough banks/credit unions that offer services for free.<p>This article leaves open several issues by likening BitCoin to email. Great that email is a protocol. But what happens when Gmail fails? At this point GMail is too big to fail, and I for one am glad that Google, with it's resources and very talented engineers are backing it.<p>> New technologies take time to mature.<p>Granted. BitCoin is very sophisticated, and it's clearly valuable. But, this is my hard earned cashtro we're talking about, and I don't want to put it into "immature" technology. Again, as a consumer, my confidence is a real material thing when dealing with financial institutions.