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Bitcoin may have had a bad week, but it will never lack for defenders.

On Monday, Mt. Gox, one of the largest trading sites of the digital currency, went offline after it was revealed that it was possibly the target of a $350 to $380 million theft, about six percent of all bitcoin in circulation. Mt. Gox is based in Tokyo, and authorities in both Japan and the U.S. are looking into the security breach, which went unnoticed by Mt. Gox for years. The trading site's CEO, Mark Karpeles, tells Reuters his company is "at a turning point."

As is Bitcoin itself. Sen. Joe Manchin has already called on federal regulators to ban bitcoin. He wrote Wednesday, "Before the U.S. gets too far behind the curve on this important topic, I urge the regulators to work together, act quickly, and prohibit this dangerous currency from harming hard-working Americans."

So early adopters and bitcoin executives are on the defensive, eager to prove that digital currency is still the next big thing — and that it does not need more regulation. One Reddit poster, who identifies himself as Coinapult founder Eric Vorhees, wrote Wednesday,

I have dedicated my life to building and supporting the Bitcoin project. I don't give a damn about the money I lost at Gox. That's not important. What is important is that Bitcoin is resilient and enduring, and will continue to grow and change the world for the better. It is a story of human progress through technology. It is a story of the good seeping into the cracks of a corrupted financial system. It is a story of passionate people struggling against all odds to remedy the calamities brought down upon society from the most potently misguided people and institutions on Earth.

Vorhees wrote in Business Insider Tuesday that users must stand strong against the media. "We are building a new financial order, and those of us building it, investing in it, and growing it, will pay the price of bringing it to the world," he explains. Vorhees himself is paying quite the price — he lost 550 bitcoins, or $314,000 in the Mt. Gox theft. Still, in broad, dramatic terms, he urges other users to fight the good fight with him, life savings be damned.