What is the ultimate way to say 'fuck you' to every customer that suffered immense financial loss due to the sheer shadiness of Bitcoins that magically disappeared? I'll give you a hint:
**<center>It's taking almost $900 million that could be used to properly refund them and placing it into your own pocket.</center>**
While I'm sure nobody will agree that the strange event of disappearing Bitcoins during 2014's Mt. Gox bankruptcy was expected, nor has the handling of its lost customer funds been fair, two things remain as clear as ever in hindsight:
* In Bitcoin, you are your own bank.
* Fairness does not extend beyond the public ledger.
[Exchange hacks](https://www.coindesk.com/bitfinex-bitcoin-hack-know-dont-know/) and lost funds seem more or less few and far between in recent times, the threat forever lingers; and the threat has certainly grown larger and far more vicious due to the exponential growth of cryptocurrency.
One major problem with the popularisation of cryptocurrency is the sheer amount of fresh minds jumping into what they consider to be a high reward/low risk investment. Many are going to be oblivious to the fact that once we called this weird part of the Internet the 'Wild West of Crypto,' and for good reason.
The largest selling point of Bitcoin for many was its liberal approach of placing money directly into the hands of its owner--and rightfully where it belongs--but that freedom can be a double-edged sword. The case of Mt. Gox crediting its users at a rate of around 5.7% of today's current Bitcoin market price while its [owner receives almost $1 billion](https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/mark-karpeles-will-end-taking-859-million-mt-gox-bankruptcy/) only strengthens one of the oldest rules in cryptocurrency: **Bitcoin is money. Don't place the safety of your money into the hands of another without full understanding that they can lose them. Use cold storage. Create backups. Don't use online wallets. Never store your Bitcoins on exchanges unless you are using them at the time.**