If you can find objective metrics that justify investing, great. But if the majority of your decision is emotional it's probably not a great choice.
I would look at what they're doing not what they're saying. They're playing up their opportunities, but firing everyone. The actions speak louder than their words.
Almost every startup has a great idea, a great product and a great team (and if they don't they will still sell you on the idea that they do have all these things).
What great startups have is all of those things plus great market fit plus great adoption plus great investors.
If it's all show it's a no go.
If the founders were the only engineers maybe there's still some chance that they can manage an acquihire for themselves, but it would be worth pennies, and any transaction will likely be below your option execution price.
Firing all the employees is a rather transparent signal that liquidation events (or any financial events) are off the table, and founders are simply debulking expenses to kill the company.
Also, the simple and straight forward solution to your problem is simply to ask them. These might be hard times for the founders but a short and candid message asking about the situation wouldn't hurt. They probably don't want you or anyone spending their money in a dead company.
I have a friend who was first 50 at Amazon and let 50,000 Amazon options expire. He still did well but... FOMO is a real thing. $1000 is probably my cap in this situation however.
1) The company just fired all of its employees
2) The company just fired all of its employees
3) The company just fired all of its employees
That's a really bad sign. Even if they raise additional money, it likely won't be on good terms. With the price of bitcoin way down from it's peak, and much of the "fools" money in this space dried up, I can't imagine that a company who is so close to the edge that they have to fire all of their employees is going to get great fundraising terms.
But take my advice with a grain of salt, as you obviously know and understand the company better than I do.
As an aside, the fact that you are asking here likely means that you have an emotional investment in the company. I get it. If you really have FOMO, you can always split the difference and maybe exercise half the options, or whatever amount you wouldn't mind losing. I once exercised a few thousand dollars of options knowing that it was a bad investment, but also knowing that if I was wrong and the company did well, I'd have a terrible regret. And it's purely because I worked there for a few years... it's not like I obsess over the fact that I didn't make an early investment in Amazon (where I never worked), even though logically that's the same thing.