I think the end must be near. My 5 BTC withdrawal has been on hold for 17 hours. Guess they needed to run the the "cold storage" vaults for such a large amount lol.
While we are on the death watch, I thought it would be fun to revisit my predictions from the old thread:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.9193886 which have now come true.
Predictions. The following is pure speculation. I will probably get some wrong, but I bet I get the gist of it right.
A) GAW will start to offer a new product through hashbase that will offer many of the features Josh has promised for Primes such as multiple algos and reduced cost. These new hashlets (or maybe some other name under hashbase) will be more expensive than solos just as in the case of Zen Hashlets. Just as with Zenhashlets, the new hashlet or hashbase-let will be just as profitable as prime hashlets so people will think they are getting a bargain when they pay $25 or so more mhs. Prime owners will have the ability to upgrade to the new hashlet for free so that promise will be kept, but only if the prime owner is willing to take a ride on the new hashlet train and convert to the new hashlet schema.
Check. Hashstaker Primes anyone? Free upgrades! Even better than the original Prime Hashlet! The next evolution of not-mining miners.
By the way, doesn't Hashstaker Prime make you think of Pondarosa Steakhouse?
B) The new hashlet (or whatever it is called) will lack one important feature - it will not have a market and private sales (except through resellers of course) will be banned. GAW will probably justify this by saying that having a market encouraged speculation and whiners like me to take down morale. Or maybe they will cite concerns about security or fraud. So no more sales. This is essential to enable GAW and its resellers to market new hashlets -- otherwise, the "used" hashlet market will set a market price that will be lower than what GAW/resellers sell for. Resellers (and the moderators who speak for resellers on hashtalk) will love this. There will be shill accounts (most likely resellers) who will applaud GAW for getting rid of the buggy and problematic market. Anyone who questions it will be downvoted out of existence on hashtalk.
75% proven. The "new" Hashstaker Prime will not be sale-able on the market until the upgrade process is complete - at least 2 weeks. Look for longer delays and excuses to make this a 100% proven prediction. More importantly, you have the "stake" your paycoins for 6 months in order to get ROI - which ensures a large amount of locked up investment.
C) GAW may keep its promise not to create new Prime hashlets, but a large number of prime hashlets will mysteriously become available possibly through resellers or the market. Since hashlets are virtual anyway, GAW or its resellers could have millions in virtual inventory and still be truthful when saying no new primes will be created. Now that GAW has cleared out all of the whiners like me who wanted out at a lower price, they may be able to support a higher price in a market for a while and keep selling them directly via the market or indirectly via resellers.
This was previously established through the reseller fiasco that led to 25:1 sales of hashlets due to supposed hackers.
D) GAW will, eventually, shut the whole project down when the SEC and/or FTC get involved and start asking questions. GAW will blame government regulations for the reason for shutting down, saying that the U.S. is out of touch with the next big thing but that, they have to comply and that means shutting down. This will only happen when sales of new miners plateau.
GAW has already said in the WSJ article (quoting Josh) that GAW must link "every cent" of profits for hashlets to mining in order to avoid SEC trouble (which, IMHO, would still not be sufficient). Josh has also said that Zenpool relies on coin ICOs and lending miners among other non-mining activity to account for profits in the Zenpool... Hmmm. Lets call this one not-yet-happened but close.
I guess some people can sell ice cubes to Eskimo's 
