Whilst I have huge sympathy for the individuals that have suffered losses from the recent hacks, to focus on the flaws in Bitcoin or these institutions may be to miss the point.

Bitcoin has made it clear that a digital "ledger" which can allow parties to exchange value immediately, with extremely low cost is possible. It has also proved that it can be done in such a way that a vast ecosystem can be built around this core.

In short, whether we end up running on Bitcoin or another set of rails does not matter; the ledger genie is out of the bottle and we are going to experience massive disruption in the payments industry. Anyone that says otherwise is likely in the (current) payments industry.