Well, Im not sure I want to be the guy to stand up for pirate, but to be fair, if he has some sort of deal with customers, like, I dont know, future contracts or whatever, its not unthinkable he has to dissolve/settle those contracts first before he can return the coins. Assuming he would have them, if he passed the coins on to some other party for whatever reason, it might take him some days (and of course, potentially, forever) to get them back.
That might be true, but the problem is that, due to the general atmosphere of FUD and non-news of the past 48hs, some "investors" are now accepting lowball offers on their debt and will take big losses due to fear of getting nothing. So even if you assume it's not a Ponzi and he will pay out, he is indirectly screwing some of his former clients by not keeping them in the loop as to what exactly is going on with their payments.
If I was running a business where my reputation was at stake, and I had custodianship of other people's savings, I'd damn well make sure to answer all communications respectfully and let everyone know the exact status of the payout situation at least once a day. If only so that my customers could sleep well at night.
So at this point, although it's not yet confirmed that it's a Ponzi, the past 48hs do seem to confirm that Pirate has no moral problem with his customers jumping off a cliff due to his own lack of transparency.
PS: these are unemotional outsider observations, I have no exposure, direct or indirect, to his business.
Spare change? 1AZ7QeAnzW8ywfJPUS3DeiXxCmetYgUTLe
