I don't think there's anything sus going on. It's just basically impossible to run a self custody node on your phone that runs mint, doesn't rug users with lightning glitches and requires minimal support. 3 dudes salary + some marketing and infrastructure spend, very easy to burn 500k or whatever they got. So I'm guessing they just saw writing was on the wall.

Total speculation on my part of course I don't have any inside information 

 Your input is especially valuable. Maybe that’s it, but the announcement didn’t feel right being so out of the blue and focusing on personal reasons (Ben got a job, Tony fell out of love with Bitcoin). Lol. I’ve learned to listen to my gut on stuff when something feels off. Doesn’t mean I’m right every time though, but I’m often at least partially right once more info comes out. 

 Intuition is not to be toyed with.