This is an interesting read...

https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/29/16060344/btce-bitcoin-exchange-takedown-mt-gox-theft-law-enforcement

It suggests Mt. Gox collapsed due to criminals taking advantage of not very good vaults at Mt. Gox, as apposed Mt. Gox itself running off with near a half a billion dollars in bitcoin.

It also suggests a way to distinguish between what could be considered main-stream bitcoin exchanges and the rest - namely whether they're registered with FinCEN or not.

News around bitcoin seems to wax and wain with fluctuations in its exchange rate. While that's the case, it doesn't have much real value beyond something to speculate with, or perhaps a safe place to put some of your money when you think maybe the banks are about to go bust or your country's printing too much new money.

It would be useful as internet pocket-money, or for transactions with people you trust so neither has to pay a middle-man fees for the transaction. Or with people you don't trust so they can't ask the middle-man to reverse the transaction sometime after it was made. All of which require a trusted exchange one way or the other.

This appears to be the bitcoin folks' latest wet dream...

https://21.co/features/

Taken to its logical conclusion, what's on the net would be paid for by whoever pays for the power of the computers connected to the net. (Assuming my brief scan of the site is sort of correct, which it may not be.) So popular sites would be receiving more bitcoins than unpopular ones, and people with no content or services to share sell would be the ones footing the overall bill.

But bitcoin mining ends eventually, right? So computers won't be able to create them any more, which would then get problematic for those who just consume what's on the net - and those relying on the income they receive from them.

http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/05/craig-wright-i-dont-have-the-courage-to-prove-im-satoshi-nakamoto/

Fun while it lasted, anyway.

This is a good list of some of the arguments against Craig Wright being Satoshi...

https://www.nikcub.com/posts/craig-wright-is-not-satoshi-nakamoto/

It's hard to believe Gavin Andresen could be easily fooled, but it sure looks like a better controlled test is required.

Andrew O'Hagan's story might reveal the most though...

http://www.lrb.co.uk/2016/05/01/andrew-ohagan/the-search-for-satoshi

I've not kept up with bitcoin of late, but this article by Mike Hearn caught my eye today...

https://medium.com/@octskyward/the-resolution-of-the-bitcoin-experiment-dabb30201f7#.8u9gpast9

"From the start, I’ve always said the same thing: Bitcoin is an experiment and like all experiments, it can fail. So don’t invest what you can’t afford to lose. I’ve said this in interviews, on stage at conferences, and over email. So have other well known developers like Gavin Andresen and Jeff Garzik.

But despite knowing that Bitcoin could fail all along, the now inescapable conclusion that it has failed still saddens me greatly. The fundamentals are broken and whatever happens to the price in the short term, the long term trend should probably be downwards. I will no longer be taking part in Bitcoin development and have sold all my coins."

The reason given is: "The block chain is full. You may wonder how it is possible for what is essentially a series of files to be 'full'. The answer is that an entirely artificial capacity cap of one megabyte per block, put in place as a temporary kludge a long time ago, has not been removed and as a result the network’s capacity is now almost completely exhausted." and that the current core developers are not willing to fix that.

Bitcoin had been rising in price of late...

http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/bitstampUSD#rg730ztgSzm1g10zm2g25zv

so it should be interesting to see what Hearn's comments do to its value.

Regardless though, bitcoin has shown that cryptocurrencies can work, so they're here to stay if there's a real need for them.