It was through Gwang-ho that he first learned about Bitcoin.
"Hey, do you know about Bitcoin?"
"What's that?"
"The programmer guys told me about it. They said it could become a new currency."
"A new currency? Money is everywhere in the world anyway."
"They said someone in the US bought pizza with this."
"Huh, really?"
"Yeah, it became a huge topic because someone bought pizza with 10,000 Bitcoins."
"How much is pizza in the US? About 20,000 won? If it's 10,000 coins, that means one is about 2 won."
To be precise, the Bitcoin was worth 40 dollars, but information was scarce at the time.
"The important thing is that it acts as a currency. Doesn't it feel like MMORPG cyber money appearing in reality?"
"You're right. That's fun."
At first, it was curiosity. For us, who played a lot of RPG games at the time, it felt like game money could be used in reality. Plus, since we were studying programming, we were naturally interested.
"Should we buy some too?"
"How much money do you have?"
At Gwang-ho's question, he checked his bankbook and saw he had about 1 million won.
"I have 1 million won."
"The price of Bitcoin right now is... Hey, it went up a bit?"
"How much?"
"It's about 4 cents apiece?"
"Whoa, what's with the chart? It went up like crazy."
The price soared insanely.
"What do we do? Give up?"
"Let's just buy it. Seeing the price rise, it might go up more. And even if it doesn't, let's keep it as a memory."
"Shall we?"
"Go for it~!"
"Okay!"
Was it the vigor of youth? He didn't ignore the descending god of shopping and coolly bought Bitcoin. Although the purchasing method was quite difficult, he succeeded in buying it because he spoke some English and used Reddit frequently.
And then he forgot. No, to be precise, it disappeared from his memory as he went to the army, lived college life, and spent busy days dating.
"When Bitcoin was skyrocketing, Gwang-ho liquidated the coins he had."
When Bitcoin broke 1,000 dollars, the guy liquidated all 500 coins he held. It was close to 700 million won at the exchange rate at the time.
"Hey, you sell quickly too."
"Huh? Bitcoin? I definitely put that in some USB..."
At the time, he thought he had lost it. Because he couldn't find it even after searching the house for a long time.
"Ah damn! I must have lost it."
"Idiot, I'll buy you a drink. Just forget about it."
"Hey! You have 700 million. I had more volume!"
"Is that my fault? It's your fault for losing it. I heard someone is rummaging through a garbage dump to find a hard disk they threw away. You go do that too."
"Ah damn... do I really have to?"
"Hey hey, forget it and let's go. I'll buy you Hanwoo beef."
Thanks to that, the meat he got from the guy must have been worth millions of won. He didn't know how grateful a friend he was since he even took him overseas. So he could forget. He lost a huge amount of money, but it didn't mean he couldn't live his life.
But.
[Balance : 1000BTC]
The number of Bitcoins in the recovered USB transcended imagination.
"Ha..."
He was momentarily speechless at the event that was too detached from reality. After watching the monitor blankly for about ten minutes, he took out his smartphone and accessed the cryptocurrency exchange. The price of Bitcoin appeared on the main screen entered through fingerprint authentication.
[Bitcoin][174,524,844 won]
174 million won per coin. Since he had 1,000 Bitcoins.
"174 billion?!"
His jaw dropped.
Korea possessed a very large cryptocurrency market. In short, there were many people doing it. In the past, there was a strong perception that investments like stocks would ruin a family.
However, as the perception of financial technology changed in the 2010s, the number of people investing in cryptocurrency increased. Especially as stories of people turning their lives around with cryptocurrency were heard in reality, people started investing in coins regardless of who they were. Naturally, communities also became active.
Various posts were uploaded to 'Coin Korea', the largest cryptocurrency community in Korea. From meaningful information posts to the free board where miscellaneous posts are uploaded. Since the coin market runs 24 hours a day, the community was also active 24 hours a day.
"What kind of nonsense are the losers spouting today?"
Self-proclaimed coin trader Kim Min-su checked the chart as soon as he woke up and accessed Coin Korea like a habit. Looking for the free board first rather than necessary boards like the news board, he sorted the posts by recommendation.
"Huh?"
What caught his eye first was.
[A Bitcoin wallet that had been dormant for 13 years has moved.]
13 years ago means the early era of Bitcoin. Coins moving from a wallet created back then? It was interesting.
[Click!]
When he pressed the title, an English article that had been scraped appeared.
"Ay, f*ck. Should have posted a summary."
[Scroll!]
Suppressing the rising irritation, he scrolled down the wheel to lower the screen. He didn't pass the article because he couldn't read English.
"Oh, there's a 3-line summary."
Fortunately, there was a summary at the end of the text.
[1. 1 BTC was withdrawn from a wallet where Bitcoin had not moved for 13 years.][2. As a result of tracking the transaction of this withdrawn Bitcoin, it was confirmed to be a wallet of BitMarket. In other words, there is a 99.9 percent chance that the owner of this wallet is Korean.][3. There are still 999 bits left in this Bitcoin wallet. It is over 170 billion won at current market price.]
Upon seeing all three lines of summary, only one thought came to mind.
"Fck, life is unfair! Some people barely earn 100,000 won a day even if they trade their balls off. Someone earned 170 billion in one go? Wow sht...!"
And they said it was a Korean. He was beyond envious; his stomach hurt with jealousy. The community reaction was similar.
— Wow... 170 billion, insane. — Isn't he a regressor at this point? └ Real lol └ He regressed and bought it 13 years ago. — But why move only 1 BTC? └ Probably moving it just to test first. └ Testing with 170 million won [shivers] — This isn't the problem right now. Because of this incident, Bitcoin started to fall. └ Bitcoin is falling because of this? └ Originally, when whales move, Bitcoin drops. — I wish he would buy me just one Melona ice cream. └ I want a hamburger.
He returned to reality at the words that Bitcoin was falling.
"Ah sh*t! I took a long position yesterday!"
Unexpected sparks were flying.
An hour after transferring the Bitcoin, an alarm came from Coin Market.
[Bitcoin has been deposited.]
When he ran the app and entered, the number on the balance which was 0 won changed.
[Assets Held][BTC][Quantity Held: 1 BTC][Evaluation Amount: 173,524,921 won]
The price of Bitcoin had dropped by a million won in an hour. But that wasn't the important thing.
"It really came in."
It proved that the Bitcoin in his cold wallet was real.
"If I move the remaining 999 bits, I really become an asset holder of 170 billion won."
Suddenly, he remembered what happened when he got married.
(Not a purchase, but a Jeonse lease?)
So-ye's contemptuous gaze when they couldn't buy a house due to rising apartment prices and loan regulations was vivid.
"With 170 billion, I can buy an apartment in Cheongdam too."
Not only a Cheongdam apartment, but he could also buy a building if he put his mind to it. That much enormous money had been created.
"I am rich now!"
Life had changed.
The next day. Gang-hyeon woke up early and finished his shower. He shaved after a long time and dressed neatly in a suit.
"How long has it been since I wore a suit?"
It was the first time since leaving the company. Since he wore casual clothes even when going to court, it seemed to have been over a month. Leaving the house, he drove his car for the first time in a while and visited an office building in Gangnam. He checked the nameplate in the building where various companies were gathered and moved to the elevator. And the place he arrived at was Samil PwC (Samil Accounting Corporation).
"Welcome, how can we help you?"
"I am Choi Gang-hyeon, who made a consultation reservation by phone yesterday."
Guided by the desk staff, he moved to a high-class reception room. After waiting for a moment, a man looking to be in his 40s entered. The man with impressive neat pomade hair greeted Gang-hyeon politely.
"Hello? I am Manager Jeong Min-jun, who helped you with the guide over the phone yesterday."
"I am Choi Gang-hyeon."
"What would you prefer to drink? We have a variety prepared from coffee to juice."
"Can I have an iced Americano?"
"Of course."
After asking a subordinate, Jeong Min-jun closed the door to the reception room. And the two people took their seats facing each other.
"When you contacted us yesterday, I heard you wanted to liquidate some coins?"
"Yes. Since the scale is significant, it seems like an investigation from the National Tax Service will come in if I liquidate recklessly."
"That is correct. Capital gains tax has been deferred, but if you liquidate large-scale coins at once, an investigation from the National Tax Service is bound to come in. May I know roughly what the scale is?"
Recently, many young chaebols (wealthy individuals) appeared through the coin sector. Since Samil PwC also managed or consulted many coin chaebols, Jeong Min-jun treated Gang-hyeon with formality.
Seeing that he's even worried about a tax investigation, it must be over 10 billion won, right?
Just contacting an accounting firm instead of a tax accountant meant he had done his own research. So he expected it to be over 10 billion.
"It's about 170 billion won."
"...Excuse me?"
The answer that came back was a scale that easily exceeded expectations.
He finished the consultation and returned home. In conclusion, it seemed there wouldn't be any major problems.
"Well, it's not illegal funds anyway."
Even if the National Tax Service started an investigation, there was nothing particular to be caught. However, since processing such things individually would consume too much time and effort, he signed a contract with the accounting firm. He decided to handle accounting through Samil from now on.
"I can just move the coins and cash them out in the future. Or should I keep some as coins?"
What he had to do now was write a portfolio.
"If the proportion of coins is too high, the risk is too great. I need to convert some to cash and buy stocks or buildings to hedge sufficiently."
Since the investment sector was his specialty, ideas on how to configure the portfolio came to mind.
"Would it be good to buy a building in the Gangnam area? Prices here will continue to rise unless a war breaks out."
Real estate was not his specialty, so he pushed it to a lower priority for now.
"Shall I look at the US stock market?"
Sitting on the sofa in the living room, he opened his tablet PC and ran the securities program.
"It rose quite a bit during the month I didn't look."
It was a chart he used to watch every day, but he had completely let go of it while going through divorce and resignation. In the meantime, the stock market was hitting new highs every day.
"Now I can invest freely too."
One of the most inconvenient things about working as a prop trader was that restrictions were placed on personal investments. Of course, since it wasn't a large securities firm, the restrictions weren't huge, but it was still inconvenient. Now that he was an individual, there were absolutely no restrictions on trading.
"Let's see..."
When he clicked the menu to view his favorite stocks, about a hundred stocks appeared soon. Stock names and price fluctuations were simply displayed. It was when he was scrolling down checking the stocks.
"Hm?"
One stock caught his eye.
[Core Wave]
It was a representative company providing cloud-based infrastructure to AI developers. It was a stock whose price was rising every day due to the recent strength of AI stocks. It wasn't simply for that reason that the stock caught his eye.
"Why is this glowing blue?"
It was because only that stock was glowing with a blue light. Thinking he was seeing things, he rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. And he opened them again to look, but.
"It's still glowing."
It kept glowing. In blue, which signifies a stock price fall.
"Ay... No way."
He denied it with words, but conversely, his heart beat wildly.
(End of Chapter)
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