The weirdness was a result of dozens of people saying they'd commit capital but not going through with it when closing time came. The seller wouldn't give an extension because - if you recall market conditions in late '21 / early '22 - he would have made more money pocketing the earnest money deposit and putting the land back on the market at a higher price.

The public last-ditch appeal combined with the terms Joel felt were necessary to execute properly (ie, not including land ownership or operational governance rights for investors) made it look very scammy to the outside observer on bitcoin twitter. And few things fire up that corner of the internet more than piling on when a scammer is being called out.