I wouldn't be investing any BTC with him if getting scammed was my main concern.
This is one of those statements that sounds intuitive (e.g. "follow your dreams"), but doesn't actually prove anything.
Getting scammed
is my main concern, yet I do have BTC invested. Serious injury or death is my main concern when I skydive. I still do it.
I still think theft is the most probable scenario.
Another possibility: What if dooglus accidentally lights every copy of his offline wallet on fire simultaneously? Are investors protected?
There are ways to protect from this, yes.
That does not answer the question at hand: "are investors protected?"
It also completely dodges the intent of the analogy, destroying any hopes I had for a reasonable conversation.
"I'm worried about alien abduction"
"What happens if our log cabin spontaneously combusts while the whole town is inside, will we be ok?"
"Fire extinguishers exist in some countries."
I can only speak for myself. But, the reason I haven't invested more is because of physical security concerns, not because I'm worried about getting scammed by dooglus.
Are you a betting man? I have some odds you might want to look at.
No. I am an investor though. Every bitcoin investment requires an element of trust. I invest in individuals that I consider to be competent and trustworthy and spread the risk accordingly. If I was worried about everyone being a scammer, I'd just put my BTC in a paper wallet and let them sit.
Are you a hedging man? I have some potentially profitable odds you might want to look at.
Another possibility: What if the authorities decide his site is illegal and decide to confiscate the computer with the offline wallet? Are investors protected from such a scenario?
It would be foolish not to have multiple encrypted backups of the wallet in multiple locations. So "yes".
I believe the American police said that they managed to "confiscate" some BTC. What actually happened was they received BTC at a honeypot's address, but still, they generated an address. In 5 year's time, they'll be pushing transactions from confiscated privkeys.
Unless, of course, Canada is one of the countries that does not mandate privkey disclosure?
How about Pirate, who was so trusted as to have an OTC rating in the several-hundreds?
Unlike with Pirate however, everyone understands my business model and can see it working in real time. I'm aiming for total transparency (without disclosing the identity of investors).
That's very true, and I assess your risk to be lower than his. This is different from, but influences, your "trustworthiness."
One thing that nobody seems concerned about is the following:
That's an interesting problem and an interesting solution.
Make a bet on that other site? Set a deadline. The "bet if dooglus is a scammer"... I think it's called bitbet? Which incidentally is one of the adverts on just-dice.
http://bitbet.us/hehehe. That would ... work both ways. You make a bet that he isn't going to disappear with 19k BTC, or you bet that he will disappear with 19k BTC.
It's a gamble either way.
I don't want a deadline. We merely disagree on the probabilities of different ways that the site could die, not the probability of it dying before some deadline.