This is the last post by Michael in that thread:
I'm probably not going to pay people large amounts in advance (and certainly nowhere near 5500 BTC).
Well, he wrote "probably"

But I hear you, claiming not to pay anywhere near 5500 BTC in advance, which where something like 600K USD at that time, and throwing 350K USD at someone now just doesn't compute.
Not just merely "throwing 350K USD" at some random start-up company, but also ignoring all offers made by various forum participants since 2011.