Don’t let the insults get to you.

But yeah, obviously, the more capital you pay in, the more “credible” your company looks. The whole concept of limited liability means that if your company capital is X €, the creditors can only get the X € (unless you do something stupid, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piercing_the_corporate_veil).

The fact that the minimum capital amount is so high in Germany is bonkers to me.

The minimum capital amount is 1€, that's the entire point of the UG, to encourage entrepreneurship.

The intended path for the upgrade from UG to GmbH is that once the UG makes a profit, this should be used to save up the 25k€ and convert to a GmbH once it's reached.