Thanks for sharing this very moving story, @eco-alex!

(...) his fear was palpable and had clearly taken over his logic or reasoning (...)

To me this phrase sums up the entire situation. As much as I agree that it was probably the best idea to part ways with him, I also think I understand where all his negativity was coming from. Somewhere I heard or read that the opposite of love is not hate, it's fear. And I have seen how irrational people can get from being afraid of whatever: potential nazis or terrorists in the bushes, or government authorities, as in this case, for doing something illegal (I understand that selling the ECO coin was such an issue for him).
In fact, I have experienced the effect of fear myself with the benign example of poison oak, a plant that causes an itchy rash if you touch it. Though it grows all over the west coast, it is commonly associated with California. So once we crossed the state line on our bike trip we immediately became so concerned about it, that an otherwise lovely and welcoming forest suddenly appeared fearsome, malevolent, and outright dangerous. Though a big part of this fear was that neither of us could actually identify poison oak (for the first few days at least), which is the factor of the unknown, or unfamiliar.
So I believe another take away lesson from this story is that we must help each other conquer our fears of the unknown before it wrecks havoc on everyone.