Not at all. These sites that are being repeatedly compromised and yet positioned as "the market" for Bitcoin are, for all intents and purposes, the currency. Compare to USD: banks, exchanges, conversion, speculation. Without them, USD is just me handing someone else some paper, and Bitcoin is just as useless without the "market" as defined by a few hobbyist Web devs, in this case.
Think about it. I can send a Bitcoin address some Bitcoins, which is equivalent to me handing someone else some cash. Anywhere you want to go from there requires an external market, and that includes:
- Accepting Bitcoins online
- Converting to Bitcoins
- Speculating with Bitcoins
ALL of those things are a "secondary market" which, in turn, increase the value of the currency. Traditional currencies have extensive support structures built around them, and those structures are heavily regulated to avoid this exact scenario. So far, Bitcoin has some hobby Web sites without any real consequences for fucking up.
This is an argument over semantics. What you seem to claiming is basically that a currency is defined by both its inherent features and its supporting ecosystem.
So in BTC's case, inherent features = protocol, client, and miners. Supporting ecosystem = buyers, sellers, savers, merchants, exchanges, investors, speculators, banks, escrow, etc.
Further, you seem to assert, failure of parts of the supporting ecosystem causes BTC to lose value (true), and that losing value means the currency is failing (not necessarily, stochastic variables fluctuate, hard to tell the signal from the noise).
The value of a currency is fundametally a function of its demand relative to its supply (as with pretty much everything in this world). Demand for currencies increase with their utility.
For example, is it the only currency in the world you can buy oil with? If yes, utility increases -> demand increases -> value increases (ceteris paribus, no increase in supply).
In that regard, Bitcoin appears to have a strong baseline of utility in that its core technologies are relatively sound. Truthfully it's probably too soon to make that call, given potential problems with mining pool consolidation, pseudo-anonymity, etc.
But Bitcoin's core technology is so far sound enough to provide a consistent utility/demand/value/price baseline relative to the shaky, hobbyist/amateur supporting ecosystem that has sprung up around it.
So that when even its biggest exchange MtGox.com is hacked, or one of its most high-profile financial companies Bitcoinica.com is hacked and bankrupted, the BTC price in dollars continues to revert to a mean of around $5-$6, aka the BTC Baseline.
So, asserting that failures of BTC's peripheral components represent failure of the currency itself, or that BTC is not a currency because its supporting ecosystem (which the BTC devs have almost no control over) is weak, is a bit of hyperbole, and the reason for all the pushback.
Also, keep in mind that Rome wasn't built in a day. Building a new currency of any sort is difficult (ask Europe), and building one that's made of electricity and algorithms instead of gold or sovereign debt is probably one of the most difficult things in the world, and BTC is the first viable one humanity has ever seen.
Getting the core technologies right is crucial, and the BTC team has done a great job for their first try, but have another few decades of continuous improvement before it will be considered truly sound.
Asserting at this point that it has failed or succeeded is probably a bit premature. The jury will be out for a while yet. Speculate at your own risk.
