After $620,000 theft, another Bitcoin service shuts down

I don't like to repeat a previous comment but it is relevant to this discussion - just a few days ago, I wrote:

The number #1 requirement for a currency is trust and confidence in it. Why would anyone trust a currency which has no consumer protection whatsoever and provides zero recourse for when things inevitably go wrong?

What I mean is, everyone is hating on Mt. Gox but conceivably what happened to them can happen to any of the exchanges out there now. There is no mechanism to prevent it and there is no recourse for users when it does.

This is why bitcoin is interesting as a protocol but a non-starter when it comes to being a true currency. A currency requires backing by a central authority. No amount of code can make up for that.