Vance Crowe, who owns the Articulate Ventures communications firm in University City, still has faith in bitcoin. He accepted $3,000 worth from a client last November and still holds some of the virtual currency.

“The way I look at it, this is a sad but important step for bitcoin,” he said. “Maybe it will make the bitcoin system stronger.” He pointed out that bitcoin’s underlying software — a shared ledger system that keeps track of all transactions — hasn’t been implicated in the Mt. Gox failure.

Kevin LaFata, who runs software firm High Orbit in Fenton, has advertised that he’ll accept bitcoin. No one has paid him that way yet, but he thinks some foreign clients could reduce transaction costs by using the virtual currency.

LaFata isn’t deterred by the Mt. Gox collapse, either. “It’s probably a good thing if somebody who had a bad reputation is finally getting out of the game,” he says.

With the support of true believers like Crowe and LaFata, bitcoin should be able to survive. Its volatility, though, will probably consign it to the fringes of finance.

“Bitcoins are not going to be very good money because their purchasing power is going to fluctuate wildly,” Andolfatto said. “If you got paid in bitcoins and then you discovered your paycheck would buy just half as much bread as the one before, it would be really frustrating.”

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