Originally Posted by MikeRoth

I'm confused as to the question/confusion here... MTGox isn't a bank. It's an exchange. It works the same way any stock exchange site does. Whether bitcoins are $200 or $5 MTGox doesn't lose any money and will still have 100% of the funds for everyone to withdrawal. They make their money on transaction fees.

If you put $1,000 into e-trade and buy stock and the value of the stock goes down 50% because people are only willing to pay $500 for it. E-Trade still has that $500 you lost, It's just now belongs to someone smarter than you.

If MTGox is housing $2,000,000 in deposits and bitcoin crashes to $1/coin they will still have $2,000,000 available for withdrawal. Whether the money is in your account because you bought low and sold high or in someone else's because you bought high and sold low it's always there ready for withdrawal.