Quote from: Shadow383 on August 27, 2012, 04:45:55 PM

Quote from: Rygon on August 27, 2012, 03:46:07 PM

If this really was a Ponzi, he wouldn't have $5M in coins. He would have been paying interest on old accounts with new money. Based on some rough estimates of deposits and interest paid, BS&T would have, at most, only 10s of thousands of BTC, not hundreds. You can't run very far and buy much protection for under $1M USD.

Why only tens of thousands?

Much of the interest paid each week came straight back, there's every possibility he's ended up with a few hundred thousand coins.

Even if we low ball it and say $500,000 USD worth of coins. You can buy a reliable bluewater sail boat for $20k. Lets say he splurged and spend $60K (used of course). You can live VERY comfortable in the Carribean, Central/South America for $1,000/month. That would be around 35 years. Say 30 years after inflation. Assuming he has no income ever again for the rest of his life. None of the funds are invested, and none of the funds remain as bitcoins (all very unlikely) That includes fuel, food, alcohol, docking ect. You have the option of traveling around the world. You can move your location every day. Chance of you finding someone that lives like that is slim to none. Not really expensive and pretty good way of life.