Here's where the real miscalculation happened—the fatal assumption about Justin Sun's commitment level.

Their entire playbook banked on a simple bet: he'd walk away. Cut losses, protect reputation, let TUSD fade into obscurity. They figured prolonged legal warfare and confronting an entrenched fraud apparatus just wasn't worth the trouble.

Distance, pivot, survive—that's what rational actors do, right?

But what if someone decided this wasn't just business? What if it became something else entirely—a line in the sand, a refusal to let the playbook work one more time?

That shift changes everything. And they clearly didn't see it coming.