I think it is pretty clever (in a diabolical kind of way).
Here's my take on it.

Gaw built up a mining business and saw cloud mining as a way to get lots of people buying in with even small investments to start with.

Sell as many hashlets as possible. Create a community (hashtalk) driven and policed only by fervent believers.

Create hype/frenzy around new coin, with an initial value of $20 (Never guaranteed though although you might think it is looking at the posts).

Ensure most people mine HP for as long as possible (no cost associated with that, just issuing tokens).

Create confusion in upgrade process to stimulate hashmarket (10% of sales -> Gaw).

Extend HP mining until even die hard fans get tired of it.

Create an upgrade offer that removes the obligations with as many Primes/Hashlets as possible.

Issue free paycoins as incentives to "upgrade" your hashlets. (They are worth $20 each :-)

Extend HP mining a bit more + offer some sweetener to some hashlet owners.

Paycoin market opens, price stabilises around $1 (maybe)

Message - Hey that's the market at work, we never guaranteed anything!

Or I suppose I could be wrong and paycoin blasts to $500 and I feel like a fool
and shops start only accepting paycoins.