They should stomp all over this crap. Here you have an unregulated free-market system in all it's glory. Without some kind of cop pointing a stick at them to do the right thing, of course they don't bother with backups, they don't bother with accountability and they don't honor their debts. They claim they can't figure out what happened. They probably hacked it themselves. Scammers scamming other scammers, take the money and run. Just want to close the site and move on. Ayn Rand would indeed be proud of them.
This fiasco is exactly why we need a stronger regulation in financial markets, not weaker. There's really not much difference between bitcoin exchange and exotic securities markets. You just get a bunch of private people together and start trading something, like tranches of unsecured rubber dog shit. My URDS exchange is a great way to make real US dollars, and buy drugs too!
There are lots of easy ways forward for him, but he seems to be even more butthurt than the people complaining to his host. All he was asked to do was respond to them. Fine. We don't need to crowdsource that. Don't handle any complaints, just send them all the same three paragraphs and be done. Add some text to the site somewhere to discourage this in the future. We don't need to hold this guy's weiner for him, if he wants to be in business he knows what to do.
The fact is, the site owner has a reasonably cool idea but can't be bothered with managing it. Just seems like a convenient opportunity to play the victim. Nothing to see here.
Canticle: Doesn't the protagonist just die a pointless death about 1/3 of the way in? He's on his way somewhere and gets shot by a stray arrow, just because. Or maybe the point is that life sucks. I wouldn't know if it has a happy ending. I liked "The Lineman". Miller really likes his characters to suffer.
But "The Stars My Destination" by Alfred Bester is worse. Talk about punishing some poor sod beyond the limits of sanity. Once again it may be unicorns and lollipops in the end, but there's no motivation to read that far. Apparently "repeatedly voted in polls the "Best Science Fiction Novel of All Time'" by people who like pain.
Philip K. Dick manages to stay classy while being all post-apocalyptic.
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