Tl;DR I believe friedcat benefits more from staying honest and honoring shares, then he does from keeping profits to himself, I may be wrong.
On the whole he/AM have been fairly straightforward about their operations (although we never did see the full 200TH deployed for mining around mid 2013 onwards, solo mining anyways) ...a large number of people have shared the profits of their professionalism running a successful business.
I think the bitcoin world has been so full of FUD and scams that it's only natural to have question marks around the future... especially during this "down time" for AM.
Personally I trust that friedcat and crew will continue their operations under the AM banner in some shape or form, but that said, there is nothing to prevent them from investing their time and money elsewhere... it's theirs to invest.
some speculation here:
I noticed this post in another thread a while back and it made me wonder: (he is talking about Bitmain's U1 miner)
once the software catches up to these sticks they are going to kill. I am getting a steady 2.0 from each one.
These have to be asic miners new block erupters.
they are the exact same size as a block eruptor .
they have the same id as a block erupter.
fried cat = sushi
first sale of 4000 at 45 btc a case
second sale of 20000 at 33 btc a case
new years eve promo at 31 btc a case
made in china
a shit load of commonalities
these sticks rock.
6x the hash at less power and stable.
they will bury the bit fury sticks.. 2 gh at .075btc vs 2.5gh at .25btc not much to think about.
Forgive me if someone has already asked this question:
Is Bitmain an offshoot of asicminer that has built upon the investment of asicminer shareholders but is not accountable to asicminer shareholders? Bitmain's U1 miner looks like it is what should be the second or third generation of Asicminer's USB block erupter.
IF AM were to cease operations, I have faith that friedcat would wind this down in an appropriate manner with appropriate announcements, but RE the "20th" date....?? people need to stop being so immature and impatient as far as I'm concerned. Eveything in bitcoinland is still high risk, just deal with it and take a deep breath if you want to play this game...