Financial tip: Instead of shares, sell bonds.

In effect you already are selling, but you could easily offer terms that are better for all parties.

Current terms:
- Buying bonds is mandatory, and everyone has to pay for equal amount.
- No interest rate.
- You pay back as soon as possible.

New terms:
- Users will have a choice whether to get more money later or get an immediate access to all their funds.
- You promise to pay back on the account with interest (say 5%) within a time (say 1 year), with a schedule. Given the current interest rates that's a generous offer and should invite some investments.
- When there are enough bonds to cover the the stolen 97 (or so) bitcoins, every account is restored to 100 %. The accounts that sold bonds to the exchange, will be duely reduced. If you think you will need to sell even more bonds (to invest in, say security audit) you may do so, now or at some later time.
- The business runs as usual, but you keep paying the debt by moving bitcoins from the company account to the lenders accounts according to the agreed schedule. No need to make sudden temporary raises to any fees.

This should give:
1) Users, who want to get immediate access to their money just that.
2) Users, who want to simply wait to get more money just that.
3) You a reasonable time to cover your losses.


This is simpler than selling shares because:
1) Selling bonds is faster. You simply need to make a form for the user accounts, where they agree to lend you the money with the given terms (and an apportunity to print a reciept, of course.)
2) Selling bonds is easier. Little paperwork. A simple contract - little legal issues. No bitcoins actually need to be traded make the exchange solvent. It's all in the accounting system of Polonex.
3) Selling shares means a change of ownership, which easily becomes a legal mess. In any case it will take some time and is likely to have overhead expenses. There are also some long term risks for the shareholders. Unless some users are really interested in taking the responsibilities of an owner, like discussing with every other owner on every important decision, and being prepared to making additional investments to secure their assets, this should probably be avoided.

Benefits:
1) Users will soon get what they want and be happy. Polonex will keep a good reputation and stays in business.
2) Users who have bought bonds will actually have an interest to promote the use of the exchange, to increase it's volume and thus make it possible for it to repay the debt.

N.B. Given that the profit of the exchange comes from transaction fees, the interest will be covered by people actually making transactions. This means that people who have bought bonds will not use that money to make any transactions, which in turn means that they will pay relatively less for the total use of the exchange.

How about?