itodd,

There is a message to consider in what I wrote.  I'm not sabotaging a constructive conversation in the least.  Rather, I was trying to offer things to consider as a part of the dialog.

My points were:

• Getting legal protection in court for Bitcoin is not surprising given
  
  • The IRS classification of bitcoin as property
  • FinCEN's treatment of bitcoin as a financial instrument
• 218 BTC is not a sizable sum for hashfast, so they can manage that
• They likely could not manage the thousands of bitcoins that might be requested by all customers (forcing bankruptcy)
• HashFast did themselves a disservice by ignoring customers and not working out a repayment plan