critique:  There are news reports all the time about bitcoin getting hacked. Bitcoin must not be secure.

rebuttal:  Bitcoin is a protocol run by thousands of computers and operators all over the world. The news stories about "bitcoin" getting hacked refer to centralized services that *use* bitcoin getting hacked, not bitcoin itself. Most famously, the notorious early bitcoin exchange, MtGox, got hacked and drained of 650,000 BTC ($362mm worth at the time). This is akin to your bank or stock broker getting hacked. Bitcoin itself has never been hacked, and is perhaps the most scrutinized codebase in the world. Furthermore, because it is decentralized, it is not prone to the usual attack vectors that centralized services (like your bank and MtGox) are exposed to.

Even though bitcoin the protocol has never been "hacked", diligent attention must be paid to storing bitcoins securely. Bitcoin's key properties include the fact that transactions are irreversible, and that no one sits in the middle of a transaction. That means that if someone else gets control of your bitcoin, they can send it to their own wallet and there's nothing anyone can do to stop or reverse that. This is a key strength of bitcoin as a cash-like bearer asset and money system that is credibly neutral & global, but it does mean secure storage is all the more important, since there simply is zero recourse if something goes wrong.

Thankfully, there is now a wide range of reputable products and services that help you safely store your bitcoin. In contrast to even just 3 or 4 years ago, there are now many ways to securely store bitcoin, ranging from relying on a regulated custodian (such as Fidelity), to taking full control yourself with a hardware wallet or other self-storage solution. There are also hybrid models where you retain significant control, but offload a large part of the security burden to other providers (such as Casa or Unchained Capital). While bitcoin owners still need to think carefully about what storage solution is right for them, bitcoin custody is not the wild-west it once was.