> I think the key phrase here is "in the long term". Who says Bitfinex is in it for the long term? They say it? Why do you trust them? Assuming they don't plan

> I think the key phrase here is "in the long term". Who says Bitfinex is in it for the long term? They say it? Why do you trust them? Assuming they don't plan to die tomorrow, Bitfinex is on the hook for a lot of money to a lot of people right now, and they're likely going to be sued. If they were only in it for the short term, they weren't in it for short enough; they didn't get out in time. Where does Bitfinex benefit from this? If their intent was to scam their users, they've also scammed themselves through their own lack of understanding. I get what you're saying, but it just doesn't work out, even as a short term scam, for reasons that are obvious to anyone who understands decentralization. Bitcoin centralization can be a way to execute a scam (see various darknet markets that have exited with all their users' escrow Bitcoins). But Bitfinex didn't use centralization to execute a scam. They just failed because they didn't understand how decentralization would affect their business.