You may be right. The latest advice from the attorney is to try and get law enforcement involved either prior to or along side a civil action.
You need to think about what outcome you want. There's little doubt that TF has broken financial services laws and likely taxation laws as well, but generally speaking the penalties for such offences are financial so pursuing that avenue isn't going to help people recover their funds.
If he's in NSW (which current information suggests), you can start with NSW Fair Trading but that won't go anywhere unless they can contact him - it will, however, document stuff and that could be important down the track.
As far as law enforcement goes, it comes down to whether there's sufficient evidence to prove that a crime (as defined by the Crimes Act) occurred and who would have jurisdiction. Law enforcement can force Telstra to disgorge information related to the IP (which may or may not prove useful). Generally speaking, if the crime occurred in NSW then they would have jurisdiction but it can get a bit complicated when federal laws may have also been broken and when events pertaining to the crime may have occurred offshore.
I'd ask any solicitor you consult the best way to proceed if you intend getting law enforcement to investigate (international investigations always start with reporting stuff to our state police, who then contact the appropriate international law enforcement agencies). The fact that TF spoke to the SMH about his incident could be helpful as it's publicly locked him into a particular version of events. Obviously, you need to tell law enforcement that you believe he's lying and that he actually stole the BTC himself or arranged for someone else to do so and that his failure to report the theft supports your suspicion.
You're probably not going to want to hear this, but if you cannot prove fraud or other criminal activity, then there aren't likely to be much in the way of meaningful consequences. Personal bankruptcy isn't a big particularly deal here, especially if you're young, and it's the most likely outcome of taking civil action against TF (if fraud can be proven, the debt can't be discharged in bankruptcy). Obviously, a
criminal conviction for fraud or theft would have longer term consequences for TF but it wouldn't necessarily help people get their funds back. I guess a lot depends on whether you're interested in causing him grief in general or only in trying to recover your funds.
If the only real issue here is price, I'd say all we have to do is wait. The 4100 "hacked" bitcoins are already worth $3.5 million. The price of bitcoin would have to go up about $269 for this stash to be worth more than $5 million. If this were a normal stock, I'd say eh, that'll be a while. But the price of bitcoin has gone up about $170 or so just in the last couple days.
That's not the issue. The big issue is that you'd need a litigation funder for a group action and they typically fund commercial cases, not actions against individuals who likely don't have the capacity to pay an award and who can just declare bankruptcy (or fuck off overseas and not return) at any time.
The 45% cut really seems way too high to me, but I think 25% is fairly reasonable. They'd be making plenty of money here, since that's $1.25 million at ten minutes ago's prices ($971).
It's based on things like the strength of the case, the expenses in mounting it (these would be significant as they'd need considerable expert testimony), the likelihood of a judgement being easily enforced (when you're up against a huge corporation, you KNOW they have the capacity to pay), etc. Only specialised lawyers are capable of assessing each of those factors.
$1.5 million is a shockingly low pay day for lawyers in a class action, although it's doubtful the case would run for any length of time as TF likely doesn't have the funds to mount a defence. I think one of your biggest problems is going to be convincing lawyers/litigation funders that they're ever going to see any money - what can they actually seize in order to get their 25 or 40%?
