I've noticed your firm assertions that pirate is a ponzi on almost every forum thread.
I am 99.99% convinced Pirate was operating a Ponzi scheme. That is, at least most of the time, interest payments on older deposits were made from newer deposits rather than any actual investment proceeds.
How sure are you that he won't pay out principal + interest due through closing announcement?
I guess that depends on how generously you want to construe the terms. For example, if the price of Bitcoin drops to $1 in four months and he pays people back the number of Bitcoins owed, does that count as him paying back? If he claims that he has to have copies of driver's licenses to pay back money and the vast majority of his investors are unwilling to do that, and he pays back everyone who submits the precise documentation he demands, does that count as him paying back? If people agree to a 10% payback because that's all it seems like they are likely to get, does that count?
By fair and reasonable criteria, I would put the odds of him paying back at around 1%. The criteria are roughly that his investors don't suffer losses that are significant relative to the amount they invested. The odds that everyone who paid Pirate bitcoins will get at least those bitcoins they deposited back are very, very low.
