Can Electric isn't an electronics manufacturer, but Tom still needs to explain why he told people that an electronics manufacturer had taken over bASIC if that wasn't the case.
You're getting the time frame wrong. The CAN-ELECTRIC scam was long after all hopes of the project completion were off the table. It's quite likely that Tom would have liquidated the domain during the time it happened. All it took was some scammer to offer him a reasonable price, then set it up that way. And by writing the rant such a way that it "sounded like" Tom, they could basically frame him in the eyes of everyone who saw through it, while themselves collecting from those who didn't.
Er....
I have a private email from the people hosting the domain.........
Their comments lead me to think that this is NOT what happened, also remarks from the CC company again lead me to believe this is not what happened.
I have also spoken to a couple of people connected with Bitcoin In Hong Kong.... an offer was made to Tom, where funding could have been provided and he would still be lead, they were even prepared to let him bask in all the glory of being the first to bring Asics to bitcoin.
From what I can make out theses people were interested more in leveraging bitcoin as a payment method by moving it forward rather than actually getting into the business of manufacturing product, but they were prepared to assist Tom because the connection would have been beneficial to both parties.
When presenting such business opportunities to Asian investors, it would be strategically beneficial to have a well known member of the community on board, the plan was to leverage the association into other business areas not including mining or manufacturing.
The offer was made because he was the lesser of the other currently available evils, that is to say other companies were not considered either because they were illegally operated and were prepared to breach Export regulations or consisted of people with serious Criminal convictions neither of which is acceptable to be associated with when offering business opportunities to investors, because once the press start digging it all comes out.
At a personal level I find it highly suspicious that someone with a 'finished' product was not prepared to enter into negotiations to save a pet project, especially after the claims about all the work that was put into it.