It's not a "valuable" commodity. It utterly relied on the Greater Fool theory. It is as valuable of a commodity as tulip bulbs, etoys.com, or gold. It has nothing backing it, it can't really be used for anything, and it has no intrinsic value. Sure, the USD doesn't have a lot of that either, but the USD is backed by the world's largest economy, military, democracy, IP portfolio...etc.
On the other hand you have a bunch of computer geeks who think they are pretty smart.
Personally, I don't give a fuck. I think this is a perfect example of how libertopian principles utterly fail.
Go to Mt. Gox and try to enforce your "personal property rights", as libertopians are so fond of bandying about.
Go ahead, see how far you get.
This is why Bitcoin will be an utter failure.