[blibble]

I suspect this last action (setting up the new freenode) was done deliberately before he lost to libera (only hours away)

this allows him to blame the "botched" migration for the resultant failure and loss of users/channels/projects, instead of people wanting nothing to do with him (or the dregs of IRC that form his new staff)

[marcan_42]

Libera was going to overtake Freenode at the end of the month; he still had some time. But yes, it's likely he did this so that he can turn a race to the bottom into something that looks vaguely positive, if you're naive.

[mulmen]

I think it was something like:

1) Libera is catching Freenode.

2) Freenode has x users/y servers

3) If Freenode adds n servers it will gain n*x users.