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I don't believe it's just "an issue" anymore. Not to spread FUD, as my coins are also stuck there, but MtGox is likely to go down now.

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My point isn't whether it's an issue or something more in this case, but things like this don't happen with banks (at least not all the time [0][1]). With a bank you can be pretty confident you can go to an ATM and get your money out. If something does go wrong they will eventually sort it out. If something major goes wrong like them going bust your savings will be covered (at least in the EU, up to a point). Bitcoin services don't have any of these securities - it's akin to asking a bloke down the pub to hold on to £50 for you.

[0] - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/saving/article-2168701/RBS-...

[1] - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2517106/NatWest-RBS-...

With a bank, you can be pretty confident you can go to an ATM and get small amounts of money out, but even there we've seen system failures block withdrawals for longer than this one. Also, there's small daily ATM limits and at least one major British bank has a policy of refusing large cash withdrawals (several thousand pounds or more) full stop through any means unless you can prove to their satisfaction why you need that much cash: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25861717

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