Not surprised to see another project with a copied web-page and whitepaper getting busted. Someone was promoting the last one and they were legit enough to owe up to their mistake, I hope @MrCrank is also going to do the same.
~
I hope the manager corrects their mistake and stop doing this bounty. No excuse should be entertained from the team, they misled the bounty participants.
I've sent PM to him since yesterday but until now still no response.
I don't think he will stop this campaign because I'm sure he will continue to take his job without doing any research, well as you said it's likely in the future he will do the same.
It's not strange for me if the team said this was the developer's fault because basically, the team was not serious about a project being developed.
It could be that the bounty promotion is just taking advantage of it.