This. Exit strategy all along. Or they were sloppy enough to get monitored accessing the coin wallet and exposing their private keys/passwords.

Haha, exactly this. The crypto meme is "I lost it all in a boating accident".

According to the blog post, they said their payment server had been seized. The payment server must hold or have send-access to a Bitcoin wallet if it can make payments. By seizing their payment server, they also siezed the Bitcoins.

They seem to be trying to operate under new rules.

That's not what you do if you just stole everyone's money / should run...

It's exactly what you do to give yourself plausible deniablility. You have to play the part.

Oh, somehow failed to see your post before writing mine. The perpetrator of the "all for myself" starting the state actor claim themselves makes even more sense! Why anger your partners when you can just point a finger elsewhere?

Or maybe they all did.