I see. However:
If the circumstances were analogous, the result would be analogous. If the circumstances were not analogous, the result would not be analogous. To make this more analogous, those loaning the money would have to agree that the mining farm would produce enough revenue to pay back the loan and agree to the loan only because they agree with that assessment. And you'd need the fault in the erroneous assessment to be evenly split between the parties. In that case, as in this case, the lender's incorrect assessment harmed the borrower just as much as the borrower's incorrect assessment harmed the lender.
He made claims, depositors accepted them. It does not make the depositor partially responsible if the claims were wrong. Patrick was the only one making the verification and was being extended money not as investment but as a loan.
Isn't the premise of granting any business loan based on the belief that the borrower's assessment/business plan is sound and sufficient to guarantee the loan? (Unless you're lending based on trust of someone you know.)
Your proposition would come to the conclusion that unless you don't make any investigation before loaning the money to someone, the lender is always as much at fault as the debtor and should share the loss, because as soon as you know any claim by the borrower upon which you accept to extend them the funds, you're at fault as much as the borrower for being mistaken on the borrower's claims?
As such, to not share losses when loaning with the borrower, never investigate the borrower's need for the fund and current financial situation?
Patrick made a claim and was mistaken. The lenders were mistaken in that Patrick could execute and ran his business as he claimed he would. I'm in no way claiming he did it on purpose. But the fact his business plan did not work as expected does not put the lenders at fault for acknowledging his business plan appeared to be sufficient. This is the whole difference between buying equity in a company and extending fund based on claimed business plan. Equity is shared profit/loss, extending fund, losses are wholly on the shoulders of the borrower.