I have to admit, this guy is a genius scammer. He's like the satoshi nakamoto of bitcoin scammers.
How many hours/years did he spend crafting blog posts, pretending to have a supercomputer, forging documents, filming videos, creating bogus companies, doing bogus business deals, obtaining fake certificates, making bogus phone calls?
Can anyone think of a more legendary and elaborate scam in the bitcoin world?
Yes. It could be - but I'm not sure how likely - that this is a simple Ashley Madison extortion for btc. It would be genius if the hackers found Satoshi in the trove of data. I believe there are some old posts of satoshi's talking about using BTC for porn, so Ash Madison might be right there in the scope of his interests. In a way, I think this is the simplest explanation for what is going on - its just too convenient and stupid (risky behavior) at the moment (I mean, csw seems to have been gone from his house in Au for a while - I sorta think he knew the law was coming and he made a getaway plan that put focus on the other side of the world).