Good observation; I was trying to figure out how to state my proposal as concisely as possible, and glossed over that detail. See my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7310959
Still, I think it is a reasonable proposal. Not something that can be done quickly, but reputable companies could bail out Gox, then try to convince everyone to accept the new version of the client which would allow Gox coins recovery.
There is a real moral hazard here. People have been told to stay away from MtGox for months, but still chose not to listen and kept large sums on the exchange.
If the community chose to bail out MtGox users, that raises questions whether somebody knew that a bailout is going to happen and has profited from staying on MtGox, whether the Bitcoin balances stored in the MtGox database are accurate, and so on. Many customers there bought Bitcoin for 20% of the price on the regular exchange -- they knew that they were gambling.
What if the next exchange has problems, and people won't leave because they expect to be bailed out again?
It's a can of worms, and I'd rather that it stay closed.
The best thing for Bitcoin is if people learn from MtGox, lower their trust for exchanges, and start demanding proof of funds.
Yes, this is a reasonable concern, I agree. One could argue that a buyer actually planned the bailout to capitalize on Gox users, who, obviously, are going to pay some percentage of their balances for the whole operation. However, Gox customers don't really have any other choice, so they'd take the deal.
One can suggest that this kind of tactic will never be again used in the future, since all exchanges would be audited and customers would be more cautious.
I can almost guarantee you that if such a bailout happens that it will likely encourage such behavior in the future. Rewarding a behavior encourages that behavior, whether it is good or bad.
In the future all exchanges could be audited and customers more cautious, but if something catastrophic happened then there would be those demanding another bailout because a precedent had already been set. Even those protections mentioned would likely stagnate over time.
