What if pirate's plan was to...

[grue]

1. set up ponzi
2. get tons of suckers
3. once it's on the verge of collapse, announce it's going to payout, "soon"
4. don't payout on time
5. everyone panics, sells their accounts at <50% value
6. pirate sets up puppet accounts and scoops them up
8. now pirate's obligations are < 50%, so he will have enough money to payout to the puppet accounts
9. technically, he still paid out
10. he also gets tons of $$$ from various bets because the ponzi default

[teflone]

1. set up ponzi
2. get tons of suckers
3. once it's on the verge of collapse, announce it's going to payout, "soon"
4. don't payout on time
5. everyone panics, sells their accounts at <50% value
6. pirate sets up puppet accounts and scoops them up
8. now pirate's obligations are < 50%, so he will have enough money to payout to the puppet accounts
9. technically, he still paid out
10. he also gets tons of $$$ from various bets because the ponzi default

Ding ding ding!... we have a winner...

[P4man]

Might work if pirate only owed 50% interest on the sums he received. Thats the thing with exponential functions though, at 7% week, Pirate's debt doubles every ~2 months. This ponzi has been running far longer than that,  on his first deposits, he would owe like 10x the principal by now.