Because of the scale of the experimental setup, it is quite obvious that no gravitational effects are involved. Hence, there is no possibility for this experiment to recreate phenomena at the intersection of quantum mechanics and general relativity. What the Steinbauer does is he replicates a particular model of the black hole. If his setup works, fine, but it doesn't prove a single thing about how black holes behave - because he did not create one.
Many researchers will now pretend they'd never agree to such conditions etc, but the reality is that: 1. Targeted grants ("we give you $X to work on Y") are common 2. Many scientists are not particularly concerned with ethics outside the narrow area of not being a fraudster. As history shows (e.g. Nazi weapons research) scientists will take money from anyone as long as it allows them to research their pet subject, paying little thought to how their discoveries will be used. That's why anyone treating scientists as some role model in ethical behaviour is seriously deluding themselves.
What they showed is that black holes cannot form in *their model*, which includes quite a few simplifications to make the problem tractable numerically.
It might yet turn out that in another setting, the black hole can form.
The problem is that a 100% anonymous currency (like cash) is also very easy to steal (like cash). You can't anonymously assert the ownership of an asset.
"Primecoin solves a somewhat useful mathematical problem instead of completely wasting computer cycles like Bitcoin does."
Yeah, this was something which always bugged me about bitcoin - so much energy goes to waste and so much CO2 gets released into atmosphere to support the currency.
"The financial sector will lose it's grip pretty quickly on all this."
This is very funny given that Bitcoin is currently being integrated into the "official" financial system as another commodity or currency (depending on the jurisdiction). The financial sector is *taking over* Bitcoin as we speak.