Yeah if Matt's contract as either an owner or employee has a morality clause the company may have grounds to sue but that would be for any damages incurred by the magazine (canceled ads, lost subscriptions, PR costs to undo the bad press, etc) not the amount Matt didn't pay.  More commonly it would be used as leverage to divest him of ownership (we are suing you but we can settle out of court if you agree to sell your stake).  Those damages would be a separate issue from the 79,000 BTC Matt didn't pay so like I said the sentence is confusing and honestly doesn't really make any sense.

This sentence makes no sense.  I mean the words don't mean what you think they do.  My guess is you have some meaning and are trying to use legalese and as a result are saying nonsense.
Why not say what you want to say in plain English.   what are these "steps to seek legal recourse"?  what "material or immaterial damages"?

Also if you are implying  BitTalk Media Inc has any liability for one of the actions of its employees outside the scope of their duties well you are completely wrong. It is difficult to tell because the incorrect jumbled use of legal terms but you seem to be incorrectly implying that BitTalk Media has some liability.  Matt never made any link to the company and Vlad did post that this had nothing to do with the magazine.  Shortly after Matt removed any links to the magazine in his sig and avatar (likely at the urging of the company).  

While I hope BitTalk Media realizes that Matt is a liability using a bunch of legalese and implying any direct financial liability isn't useful.  It actually undermines the other points.  Kinda like an upset customers complaining and then ending the letter with a threat of suing you for a billion trillion dollars in pain & suffering.  It just makes the complaint go from something realistic to laughable.

Not entirely pointless.  The "auto-troll" was the type of person who infested these forums last year and the infestation was pretty bad.

Troll creates and account, blatantly spams and trollers, gets banned, creates another.  The zero cost means they would make dozens and dozens of accounts.  This makes trolling require at least some "work".  Trolls tends to not like the working part.  Even if they make one accont if it gets banned 10 minutes out of the noob zone they tend to not make as many accounts.

Your logic is like saying "Seatbelts don't save 100% of lives therefore seatbelts should be removed".  The stats show the noob rules reduce (not eliminate) the amount of trolling nonsense among new members. 

The sad thing is that it wasn't even a good "technicality".  It was more like something a 10 year old would come up with shortly before the fight devolved into infinity +1 or infinity to infinity.

Well FastCash4Bitcoins will have funds available a lot quicker than 2 weeks.
We should have more funds available by Tuesday at the latest.

He did have some credibility before this.  He was eccentric but sometimes a venture need an eccentric but passionate person.

FastCash4Bitcoins?

I would point out that it is useful information to look at the persons defending Matt and their arguments.  It provides an insight into their thought processes and a good reason to avoid doing business with them.  Those defending him are saying it is ok to lie, cheat, and break agreements as long as funds don't change hands.  Those aren't the kind of people I would want to be involved in a trade with.

Sorry I didn't mean to imply 100% sure I would win.  Just that I likely (90% to 95%) would win. 
I still considered it possible that Pirate would attempt to repay investors with devalued coins.
While I doubt Pirate could pull that off on his own maybe some large third party would use that as an opportunity to crash the market for their own reasons.
So investors would get "repaid" but the buying power of the coins repaid would be less than what they invested.

You got that chat log because that is insanely bizarre.

If true:
1) Pirate being an insolvent debtor really didn't have any right to buy Matt's bet.
2) Matt if he really believed the bet was a sham would have ever reason to pawn it off on Pirate.

Either there was collusion going on or at the point of that conversation Matt was taking the bet seriously.  I think people forget that 3 weeks ago PPT bonds were trading at > 50 cents on the dollar.  There was no absolute 100% belief among everyone on the forum that Pirate would not pay out.  

IMHO Matt made a bet when he thought Pirate would pay and made the decision to scam after the fact when he realized he would lose.

I am calm and I didn't take the bet.  This is about risk management.  The scammer tag alerts others to the risk involved in dealing with Matt.  He has demonstrated his word means absolutely nothing and as such shouldn't be relied upon.

Matt seems to believe that just because people shouldn't trust the word of a Pirate offering 3,400% interest they shouldn't trust the word of anyone.  The reality is all commerce requires some level of trust.  If you send a merchant funds you need to trust they will deliver.  If you deposit funds on an exchange you need to trust they won't walk away with it.  Even if you do all your commerce in persons (i.e. OTC) you need to trust the other party won't simply rob you.

As Matt is the editor in chief (and equity stake holder) in the magazine, his actions and lack of ethics reflect badly on the magazine.    Either the other owners condone that sort of unethical behavior, or the other owners lack the risk management to see the liability that Matt represents.  Either way that influences my decision to do business with them.  I am not "angry" or "heated".  It is business.  A large component of business is trusting the people/entities you partner with.   Sometimes it just comes down to a subjective judgement (gut feeling).  Someone looking to buy advertising space in the magazine is taking a risk.  Business is all about calculated risks and Matt's reckless, and irresponsible behavior increases the risk for others looking to engage in commerce with any business he is involved in.

If Matt is removed from the magazine he is still reckless and irresponsible but that risk no longer affects the magazine.  If he remains with the magazine that risk remains with the magazine.  
If the other owners of the magazine decide not to remove Matt well that is their right but there are consequences.  It isn't about punishing Matt, it is risk management.  The magazine is riskier because he is a part of it.

Why would individual hobbyists not have specialized hardware.  You could say multi-GPU rigs are a form of specialized hardware.  Those hobbyists trying to compete using general purpose comuters and CPU mining have no chance.  BFL has entry level products.  The Jalapeno will be the 2013 equivelent of the single 5830 rig. 

Even if ASICs/FPGA were not possible one would see large mining operations.  Once the potential profits outweigh the risks you would see larger and larger commercial operations.  For example a biz getting 4.5 cents per kWh using warehouse space in say Oregon (nice mild summers and cold winters) and rack and racks and single purpose 8 GPU rigs would always be more efficient than some hobbyist with an ill-designed machine. 

Why wasn't there massive GPU farms (say 1TH/s or more)?   The risk of FPGA/ASICs. 

We got lines of credit for our business in about 72 hours.  We are able to issue both USD and BTC denominated notes.   Getting a SBA loan would require at least a couple weeks and still not been able to provide a BTC hedge. 

Since the Pirate collapse we have seen a large number of potential lenders asking if we are looking for expansion.  I don't see a credit collapse.  I see a ponzi/HYIP/idiot pyramid collapse.   If someone will giving you >100% APR and can't explain how/why both A) they can generate that kind of return and B) why they need your money to do it then .... it probably is a scam.  

No it doesn't.  It just shows you need personal responsibility.
I believed I would win the bet and I also believed there was a good chance  Matt had no intent in paying so I skipped the bet.
Why bet on something you will win and probably not get paid?

If Matt really wanted to make a huge bet he would have made an escrowed bet (like bets of bitcoin) and dropped 10K BTC down.   If he setup the bet to close in a week and payout in three he likely would have saw 30K to 50K wagered against his 10K.  

What "rules"?  Advice for next time; don't commit fraud. It is obvious you aren't smart enough for this type of crime.  No I honestly mean it.  You are the first person I have seen to actually screw up PayPal fraud.  I mean the sad thing is it failed because you were actually more stupid than your marks.  You can't scam people if you have less intelligence than they do, and despite your victims setting the bar amazingly low you still failed.

Please for your own profitability give up on getting rich by crime and get a job at McDonalds.  Your ROI% will be much higher.

Well that is certainly your opinion and if true then no Bitcoin related business will ever be regulated.  I however don't share that optimism.  It may be a while but governments will attempt to at least control the edges of the Bitcoin economy (brokers, exchanges, major merchants accepting Bitcoins, etc). The air guitar concept could apply to a lot of intangible things (insurance, gambling, investments, money transfer, etc) and the lack of tangibility hasn't stopped governments from regulating and controlling. That is what governments do.  They control.  That is all they do.  They always seek to control.  You can't do that without definition.  Still I hope I am wrong and will be pleasantly surprised if I am but I seriously doubt I am.

I would point out even your link seems to express the same idea

Entities like Tangible Cryptography which interface between the Bitcoin world and traditional fiat currency world will probably be subject to more regulation in the future.  It is what governments do. 

Yes. 

Simple solution is to not promise rain (or anything else you are unable or unwilling to deliver).  Of course to be labeled a scammer requires someone you scammed to request it.  If nobody requests the tag then you won't get it.  One way to avoid someone requesting it is to work out some agreement (compensation for loss, repayment plan, etc).

Who? Did anyone request a scammer tag?  Were they denied?

DOH. Clarified above.

Yes you do and the clock is based on the system clock (which times out after inactivity) just pointing out the 5 post requirement is trivially easy to obtain.

The 5 post and 4 hour requirements to reduce the number of people who sign up specifically to spam or troll.  They likely aren't going away.  They don't prevent everyone (maybe not even a majority) but they do reduce their numbers which make it easier for mods to clean up the main forums.  Everyone had to go through it.  You can still read the main forums and many experienced users do respond to questions in the noob forum.