Every share holder contacting the issuer is not going to help the process or speed things up, it is probably best to give them a few days(the ones you trust anyway) to sort alternatives and figure things out for themselves as i doubt BS gave them anymore notice than the shareholders.
Contacting any other parties in advance was not an option. There should be plenty of time to figure things out.
I don't understand. What prevents you from telling us now? Did the sec put a gag order on you?
Let me explain what the most likely scenario is - and what the answers are then to your question and some other common ones.
Burnside retained legal counsel to advise on what to do to ensure BTC-TC was legally fine (that's already known).
His lawyers advised that there was no way he should continue doing what he's doing and that he needed to stop doing it. And that he needed to stop doing it without creating further liability for himself.
- At that point he CAN'T explain what his lawyers advised him - as to do so involves admitting that he was breaking the law.
- And he can't sell the exchange as a going concern to anyone else - because if his lawyers told him BTC-TC was illegal then they'd also have told him that he couldn't sell it (as a going concern) to anyone else. It's a bit like if you'd been dealing drugs : your lawyer would very strongly advise you NOT to sell your stock to some other dealer.
- And once your lawyers have told you that you must not do something then you lose the ability to claim that you believe it to be OK. As if your lawyers strongly advise you on a course of action and you choose not to follow it they are typically going to ask you sign a statement that they advised you NOT to do what you're doing - so their ass is covered.
- He MAY be able to sell the code-base - as that isn't illegal. But obviously he's not going to even consider doing that until the exchanges are fully shut down.
It seems highly unlikely to me that he's been told to close down by the SEC or any LE. Were that to have happened then closure would have been more of a case of pulling the plug out than the gradual winding down that has been announced. This feels far more like being told to stop by his own lawyers than a cease-and-desist or seizure by some government agency - they don't give you a month to sort things out in, they want immediate cessation of activity.
Although I ran multiple securities on LTD-Global/BTC-TC I was provided with no more information than the rest of you (and that IS how it should be). As recently as yesterday I was in contact with him about sorting out a problem with the locking state of a new security I was working on. I had, of course, already realised there was a pretty decent likelihood of BTC-TC closing or removing access from US investors/issuers - that became evident as a possibility as soon as signups/creation of securities was disabled without any explanation (plus the rushed addition of withdrawal addresses for issuers).