Of course, not letting the public know way long ago this had happened. Most people put faith and trust the funds were going to be there. We all thought they were whole, not doing a ponzi... and yes, this is a very good example of close to being a ponzi.
You notify your users and then let the cards fall where they may. Your eventually will be exposed one way or another, it might be the next day or 2 years if you do not, but it will be found out.
Ideally that is the best approach in any situation.
In this case though if they had announced the hack immediately the exchange would have closed immediately, almost all funds would have been lost and there would be nothing gained by anyone except the hacker.
1) A Ponzi scheme is a kind of scam where later deposits are used to pay off early investors, and which is run as a deliberate fraud with no intent to profit anyone except the operator.
a) The first (later deposits used to pay off early investors) is sort of close, they used later deposits to keep the exchange alive as they looked for a solution.
b) But the essential part of any scam, the intent to profit by deliberate fraud, just doesn't apply. The Cryptsy people could have announced the hack, bailed early and they would have lost nothing. Only those of us who used their exchange would have lost. Instead they took an extreme chance with their reputations, with nothing to gain for them personally, honestly, and tried to solve things.
2) Using the word "exposed" also is misleading. What exactly were they "exposed" of? It was exposed that they tried to survive a major hack and salvage their business and fulfill their obligations to clients. As far as I know not any person at Cryptsy profited, nor tried to profit, from the attack. Rather, instead of taking the easy step of bailing, they put themselves in a deeper, riskier spot. Obviously they knew that if they failed they would pay the price they are paying now, public excoriation (if that's a real word
).3) I don't know if I, or most people, would have done what they did. Most folks, including me, try to cover our asses by following rules strictly, so we can say "Hey look, I did everything by the book", even if everything ends in the shitter. But I respect that they knew that they stood to lose a lot, and gain nothing, and yet they still went forward with an obviously risky approach.
That said, I totally understand your sentiment, and that of others who say that the Cryptsy folk are scammers or whatever. I understand the sentiment and appreciate the way you summed up what most people believe, but I disagree.