It all boils down to greed. Maybe Monero, the community and the movement was about privacy in the beginning. But down the road big problems were discovered with Monero. Serious problems no one had a satisfying answer to. Listen to the podcast Breaking Monero, which was made with the intention to mitigate legal implications.
Identifying security problems is not the issue. But doing nothing about it and attacking people addressing it is. Monero's current aim is just to keep the party going and the money flowing by selling a broken product to the gullible and uneducated while deflecting from the failure of your promises by viciously attacking other projects.

Yes. Most likely they had to because they feared legal repercussions. In any case, if you are prepared to sit through a 5 hour lecture (who isn't, right?) - it is here.

For the same reason why asbestos companies insisted, that asbestos is safe. The same reason big tobacco pumped billions into cool advertising. There is a lot of money to be made and the top echelons of Monero community stand to make this money. At the end of the day, just like big tobacco, they don't give a damn about the fate of end users. And that compromised privacy, makes you a target by big governments and the establishment.

Yes, over a year worth of logs and the source code is available for sale. If you have experience in government procurement and want to team up, please contact me on .

I tend to dislike the word "cult". It implies a religious organisation, whereas MLM's (Multi-level Marketing) and fringe political groups use the same methods of manipluation.

Do you want to hear about Monero's Lord and saviour of NASA, Howard Chu?
With regards to Monero it is impossible to say if people that wish their mother was Howard Chu's groupie or crowning themselves as "easily the most prestigious coin" are genuine. Or are they just stroking egos in hopes of moving up the community ladder? However, Monero community has a lot of cult-like characteristics. This includes a bottom caste of people, that sacrifice their time and money for "magical crypto friendship" (Riccardo Spagni is pretty much mocking them with his podcast series).

Do you think Vincent Rijmen exploded with anger when AES was broken? No, he congratulated the authors. You have to ask yourself a question. Are you here because you care about privacy coin ecosystem? Or are you here to sell your bag of Monero to a greater fool, no matter the consequences? If you truly care about the whole ecosystem, you should ask yourself, why are Monero developers unwilling or unable to fix 4-year-old problems? And if those problems persist, maybe then it is time for Monero to go the way of Old Yeller.

Of course this doesn't explain why you are probably venting your anger on Reddit / Twitter or else. Do you feel personally attacked? Even though I don't know you, not even your name. So why do you feel that anger? The primary objective of a cult is to replace individual identity with a collective one. You will feel that every attack on the cult is an attack on you, and that the cult exploiting your time and money is for the greater good. Well done. You are a "magical crypto friend" now. Now go and buy Riccardo another $750,000 watch, while he makes another shitcoin (called Tari) for manipulated cultists like you.