I'm a bitcoin skeptic, but I think that the problems you mentioned in the first paragraph have more to do with the poor security of those individual vaults, not

I'm a bitcoin skeptic, but I think that the problems you mentioned in the first paragraph have more to do with the poor security of those individual vaults, not bitcoin itself. But, it does bring up an interesting point: as far as how I know bitcoin works, once you steal the bitcoins, they're stolen. This is different from fiat currency, at least online. If someone breaks into Bank of America's servers and figures out how to transfer a bunch of money from other people's accounts to their own, Bank of American can undo it. As long as the person does not get a cash or cash-equivalent, then it should be reversible. I invite the people who are more familiar with bitcoin to correct me, but as I understand the protocol behind it, once a bitcoin transfer from one owner to another owner is made, it's not (forcibly) reversible.