Quote from: owlcatz on August 26, 2015, 12:29:07 AM

As far as white collar prison, yeah it's easy, but you touch on a fascinating point - This guy had his whole life ahead of him. He was doing ok at first. Why anyone would resort to such scammery is beyond me. He may do a few years with Bernie Madoff, but hell, let's face it, his name and reputation is now mud, he will never achieve anything near what he had or thought he had.

Reminds me of the meme of homero working at McD's down in Dubai now that I think of it.

What a waste of a career/life.... Huh

Depends on your definition of "ok". My understanding is that he was able to con Mr. Fraser into investing some money into the wireless business. How did he manage to get those grants remains a mystery to me. Probably nobody else wanted it. I doubt the business was very profitable though. Those Ferraris were likely leased with embezzled funds. It looks like he couldn't even get a mortgage of his own.

While the wireless business was not big enough to sustain his lavish lifestyle GAW Miners the hardware reseller was probably a complete bluff from day one. Always undercutting competition on price, offering lifetime free hosting, partnering with Zeus on horribly inefficient hardware. Again, it could go on for a while on increasing sales (ponzi-style) but unlikely to be long-term profitable.

Enter Vaultbreakers, Hashlets, Paycoin, versions 3.0, 4.0, and 5.0 of the bubble respectively. It is quite impressive he lasted that far, but I think he dug his own hole very early on. I don't think he could have ended any other way given his enormous ego and corresponding lack of any tangible skill (other than lying). It was just a matter of time.

Anyway, just my take on it. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. For recreational use only.