Quote from: hgmichna on August 21, 2012, 11:12:33 AM

Time.

If he was over-optimistic when he lowered his interest rates, he may not have expected to have to shut down now and may not have been fully prepared.

He may need lots of time to sort everything out. He may have to cover his tracks, wind down positions, sell a few last bitcoins, do a number of international wire transfers, perhaps even open new bank accounts, which takes some time.

If he intended to flee physically, he may have to sell his accommodation, furniture, etc., buy airline or other tickets, but we don't know whether he will do that.

Anyway, these things take time, and he is certainly worried about being caught.

I guess a working theory is this: Withdrawals were starting to get very close to, or even exceed, deposits. To preserve his profits and try to keep going a bit longer, he reduced the interest rate, figuring this would reduce the withdrawals without significantly reducing deposits. Instead, this backfired, either increasing withdrawals, reducing deposits, or both. This forced him to shut down his operation earlier than he had planned to, so he needs time to wind down all his positions so that he can run with them.

Assuming there's no volume of PPTs to double-dip with, I don't have any other theory.