Chapter 59:

On his way to the factory, Woosung saw the effects of the financial crisis.

FOR SALE.

The signs were everywhere. Up to 40% of Silicone Valley population lost their jobs. The factory Woosung bought was also a foreclosed property.

“The crisis has devastated the country. I guess it worked to our advantage. The factory was dirt cheap.” Jonathan Logan, who was driving, explained.

“I see. Look at all those for-sale signs.”

“Haha. The price of the houses plummeted. At least our employees love it since they can easily afford to buy now.”

Someone’s loss was always another person’s gain.

“I’m glad.”

Woosung felt lucky. In his previous life, he could’ve never become rich. However, in this new life, things were very different.

“The factory was actually being used to manufacture premium PDAs. It went bankrupt though, that is why it was on the market.”

PDA, or personal digital assistant, was a palmtop computer and personal organizer popular before the invention of smartphones.

Jonathan continued quickly. “They actually offered to sell equipment and materials for cheap too. Since we would use the place to manufacture smartphones anyway, I think it may be a good idea.”

“Ok. I’ll have a look.”

FOR SALE BY OWNER

The sign surrounded the factory. A few people were already waiting outside. Woosung walked towards them and greeted.

“Hello. My name is Aaron Kang.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Ellie Robinsky.”

She was a young woman in her early 30’s. Woosung was surprised at how young the owner of such a big factory was. Ellie Robinsky noticed Woosung’s disbelief and explained.

“Haha, I’m not some young genius entrepreneur. I just inherited it from my father. Let me show you around.”

Ellie opened the door. The factory was well maintained. Every machine was spotless and shining. Ellie patted them with the utmost affection.

“There was a time when we had such big orders that we needed even more machines. Unfortunately now, they rest.”

Woosung thought gladly.

‘They are perfect for mining Bitcoins. If I get two more factories in Korea, I should be able to mine 10,000 BTC per day from all three factories.’

The more Bitcoins were mined, the slower it became to produce. By 2018, a person could mine at most one per month, even with ASIC.

However, it was different now. With CPU, at least one could be mined per day. With GPU, more could be mined.

“I heard you plan to manufacture cell phones. The actual chips may be different, but other equipment should be very similar.” Ellie continued.

Woosung remained deep in his thoughts.

‘I also heard the electricity is about 30% cheaper here than Korea. It’s a perfect place for mining.’

Woosung grinned. He planned to have 500 computers here and another 500 in Korea.

In a year, he expected to mine 3 million Bitcoins.

3,000,000 * 20,000 = 60,000,000,000

60 billion.

Of course, this was the best scenario. Woosung knew he may not be able to mine this with this much efficiency. He also knew he won’t be able to sell all of his Bitcoins at the highest price.

It didn’t matter.

The opportunities were endless. Jonathan asked Woosung.

“Aaron, what do you think?”

Woosung answered.

“I like it. I especially appreciate how the owner took such good care of it.”

“Me too. Then should we go ahead with the purchase?”

Woosung nodded and approached Ellie.

“I am happy with what I saw. Can we talk about the purchase agreement?”

The contract was signed by late evening that day. Jonathan offered to drop Woosung off at the hotel, but Woosung insisted on going back to the office.

Everyone was gone except for one.

As Woosung suspected, Amelia was still at the office.

She was sitting there alone, murmuring to herself.

“Hmm…this isn’t it.”

“This would be better for security but for the possibility of future expansion…”

“To confirm transactions easily, it’s better if I…”

“Hmm…”

Amelia was so focused that she again didn’t notice Woosung.

Growl.

Suddenly, her stomach growled loudly. Amelia finally stretched her arms.

“Now, where is my sandwich…”

As she looked around, she noticed Woosung.

“Oh, Aaron?” The office was dead quiet. Amelia asked. “You must still have more work to do?”

“Haha, I told you I’ll be back.”

“Oh, right. Haha. I’m glad you’re here. I have a few things I need to ask you. Do you have time? I feel like you might know the answers…”

As she talked, her stomach growled again. Amelia didn’t seem to notice though. She pointed at the codes.

“If you can see here, the Bitcoin block size turns into 1MB. This will be a problem when the number of transactions increases. I don’t know why it’s set up like this.”

She was amazingly dedicated. Hunger didn’t seem to bother her. She was actually enjoying her work.

Woosung pointed at the Sushi he brought.

“Weren’t you about to have dinner? I brought us something to eat.”

Amelia was more interested in work though.

“Oh, do you know the answer?”

Woosung nodded.

In 2018, this problem was discussed extensively by many developers.

“Wow! Tell me now!”

Amelia begged but Woosung pointed at the plastic bag.

“Dinner first.”

Amelia grabbed the bag. “Then we need to eat fast. Afterward, I can ask more questions, right?”

Woosung nodded.

She gulped down everything in front of her. When she was done, she asked Woosung.

“So, why this limitation?”

“The biggest reason is DDOs (Distributed Denial of Service). As you probably have noticed, if someone created a block that developed unlimited bitcoins, the system will be shut down.”

“I see that, but 1MB is so small…”

“You’ll see when we run the test. It takes about 1KB for every 3 transactions. 1MB would be enough for over 3,000 transactions. The purpose of the system was only to confirm online P2P transactions, this would be perfect.”

Amelia nodded.

“So you’re saying this is not the final product?”

“Exactly. The purpose of this wasn’t to make a perfect system, but to make something that will prove the concept.”

Amelia understood perfectly.

In 2018, many developers worked on Bitcoin and came up with a similar conclusion. Bitcoin wasn’t perfect. That was why the second and third generations of cryptocurrency were born. Amelia pointed at a code and asked.

“Then would this automatic transaction based on the conditions be the same case?”

Woosung looked at where Amelia pointed.

She was correct. It had a similar problem. By 2018, Ethereum was created to fix this. Woosung answered in an almost lazy-sounding relaxed tone.

“Yes, but also it is a block structure problem too.”

Amelia couldn’t understand.

“Hmm…but then why not charge a fee for every loop? Once there is a certain number of it, then we can block the transactions.”

Woosung flinched. This was exactly what he was going to tell her. By 2018, a smart contract was developed for this problem. It was a computer protocol intended to facilitate, verify, or enforce the negotiation of a contract.

‘She is definitely a genius. I better study harder and try to keep up.’