/u/alphabaysupport comment in this Post!:
"We're back online. For everyone who thinks we will exit scam, let me you remind you: Exit scamming is not the best method to make cash.
You can see Alphabay like a bank: while we allow people to deposit and withdraw at will, drugs are merely a product to attract customer. The cold wallet coins aren't just standing there: we invest in various things anonymously, make money with those investments, while always ensuring to run at 100% reserve. We won't go in the details, but there are thousands of ways to make money by investing Bitcoin online.
Banks do the same: they invest your money, but make sure that every customer has full access to their funds anytime. That's how they make money, and that's how we make money. Exit scamming would give us a small lump sum, but by staying online, we can make that amount of money over and over without stealing a penny from our users.
tl;dr Do not fear an exit scam, it just won't happen, because it's not the best solution."
It'd be poor PR to acknowledge the use-cases for an exit scam.
The average user is soothed by baseless promises, that's the reason they're issued in the first place. The slightly intelligent user recognizes the many situations in which pulling an exit scam is the rational choice for the owners of a DNM.