> who were requesting withdrawals from their HashFlare account
So it was more like a ton of people pay a farmer to grow a field of corn, and when they ask for corn in return, the farmer buys corn somewhere else and presents it as from his field. Meanwhile the farmer hasn't planted what they should have, and hopes not too many people ask for their cork or they'll crash.
Akin to 'farmer neither has corn growing nor money to buy corn to fulfil promises to customers'
That would be the crime...
The expectation was this farmer would grow new calories (increasing the supply of food for the region).
You may argue there is a fixed number of crypto released and thus not fair, but allocating that money towards the open market instead of toward hardware and energy company has an impact on the crypto's value.
This seems kinda reasonable as long as it was disclosed... Buying and setting up mining hardware takes a while. Buying bitcoins on the open market from someone else who has mining hardware is functionally identical.
It's a bit like going to a farmer and giving him money to grow a field of corn for you, only to find out he actually gave your money to some other farmer who grew the corn and gave it to you.