Chapter 174: <Two sides of the same coin>

Midnight.

Jung Jinsup was still at work. He worked on weekends nowadays. It was all because Woosung mentioned the word bitcoin at the Times interview. The price of bitcoin jumped from a few dollars to over 10 dollars.

All because of Woosung.

Some people made a lot of profit already. People thought 10 dollars was too expensive, yet they continued to buy them.

It quickly went up to 20 dollars. The number of transactions at Bitmain increased exponentially. The amount of work for Jung Jinsup increased at the same rate too.

Jung Jinsup sighed deeply and leaned back. He has been staring at his computer all day and now he’s tired beyond any measure. He placed some eye drops to remedy his dropping eyes and went back to his screen.

He murmured, “How did I get here?”

Only a year ago, he was one of the richest men in Korea. Why did he end up here like this? He couldn’t understand.

“I’m so tired. So tired.”

He wanted to quit right now, but he also wanted to meet Woosung’s mentor who taught him how to analyze data. He also needed the money.

“I’m so poor now that if I don’t have this job, I will be in trouble.”

Jung Jinsup sighed again.

After 1 am, Jung Jinsup finally turned off his monitor and left the office. When he got to the street, he noticed a familiar man. This man was talking on the phone.

“Yes. So you are saying it will go up to 50 dollars next week? Alright. I will take care of it.”

It was Woosung.

He continued, “Haha, not at all. It’s enough. Your data analysis technique is way better than mine, of course. I trust you.”

Jung Jinsup hid behind the building and continued to eavesdrop.

‘Is he talking to his mentor? The analysis expert?’

Woosung continued on the phone.

“Of course. I will mention the bitcoin again. Yes. Yes.”

Woosung finally hung up and got into his car.

When the car drove away, Jung Jinsup murmured, “It’s 20 dollars now… if it becomes 50 dollars next week…”

Jung Jinsup took out his phone and turned on the Bitmain app.

Bitcoin price was indeed rising slowly.

Jung Jinsup couldn’t help himself.

“I…I’m sure I won’t get caught.”

The office rule strictly forbade anyone working at Bitmain was to trade. However, Jung Jinsup’s finger clicked the “Buy” button anyway.

The next day, Jung Jinsup called in sick and stayed home. He sat in front of his personal computer. He bought the bitcoins at 21.10 and now it was 25.20. He invested 100,000 dollars and now it was 120,000 dollars.

Only in two days.

However, this wasn’t enough. 20,000 dollars was nothing. According to Woosung, it would rise to 50 dollars in the following week. He had to invest more money.

Jung Jinsup currently had a million dollars in cash and a million dollars in properties. 2 million dollars in total.

The only problem is he couldn’t sell his assets right away. He didn’t want to borrow money at high interest from loan sharks.

Suddenly, he thought of someone.

“Choi Gichul! If I explain, he might loan me 5 million dollars…”

Jung Jinsup quickly picked up his phone.

***

“Bitcoin reaches 30 dollars.”

“Will cryptocurrency take over the world?”

“Bitcoin gaining popularity quickly.”

“The truth about Bitcoin.”

Bitcoin became the most popular topic in the media. New articles about it popped up daily. Jang Gwangchul asked after reading a few of them.

“Should I invest as well?”

“If you want to lose money, sure.”

“Why? You said it’s a profitable business.”

“Haha, I guess. You never know with these things though. In 10 years, who knows how much it would be worth?”

“Are you saying it will go up or down?”

“Blockchain technology will for sure become huge. Coconut Coin will be a success too, but bitcoin…”

Woosung couldn’t tell anymore. He has changed so much of the history from his previous life. He wasn’t sure of the future.

“It will be less profitable than Coconut Coin, so just invest in Coconut Coin.”

“Alright.”

Hong Soobum, who was also in the room, asked, “Thanks to the cooperation from Nuri Finances, the preliminary test for international money transfer system via Coconut was a success. It currently takes a few days for such transfer to be processed, but with Coconut, it takes only 10 minutes. Should we make an official announcement?”

“Yes, please. I think Nuri Finances probably already leaked the news anyway. It’s such a big project.”

Jang Gwangchul said in frustration, “I should have been more active in the Coconut Coin business when we first started it.”

“Haha, do you remember saying you don’t believe in digital currency?”

Jang Gwangchul turned to Hong Soobum and asked, “You must be happy. You bought into it quite earlier, right?”

Hog Soobum replied after glancing at Woosung, “Yeah, but it still can’t compare to our President. I got less than 1% while Woosung got 90%.”

Woosung added, “I guarantee you, Coconut Coin will be huge.”

***

[Bitcoin reaches 35 dollars.]

“Bitcoin frenzy, which started with President Kang’s mention of the concept at the Times magazine interview, has now reached everyone in the country including the college students and homemakers. Some believe that President Kang Woosung planned this in order to make a huge profit for himself.”

All the other news articles, including the investigation on Daeyang and the Fukushima disaster, started to disappear because of bitcoin.

Jung Jinsup couldn’t focus at work. He invested a total of 1.5 million dollars.

He bought them at 20 dollar-mark, so his profit was now at 50%.

Even if he sold it right now, he would still have a gain of 700,000 dollars. However, he overheard Woosung saying it would go over 50 dollars. That would mean a 100% profit. Jung Jinsup couldn’t stop now.

‘Dammit! Choi Gichul would only loan me 500,000 dollars. That’s nothing! I can’t get a loan from the bank…’

Should he go to a loan shark? It was so dangerous but…

He knew a famous loan shark from his MOX days. If he used his assets as collateral, he could probably borrow between 500,000 to 800,000 dollars.

‘This is my chance!’

Jung Jinsup finally decided and picked up his phone.

“Lender Kim Jihwan.”

He checked the bitcoin price again. It was at 37 dollars. He had to move fast. He dialed the number.

***

3 in the morning.

Woosung was still looking at his monitor.

The bitcoin price was continuing to rise slowly. It was now past 40 dollars.

“10,010,013 BTC.”

Woosung had over 10 million bitcoins now. This was enough to control the price. In fact, it was Woosung who was making the price go up to 40 dollars.

“Haha, Jung Jinsup asked for a week off, which means he is most likely involved in bitcoins. He is trapped now.”

Woosung would drop the price to a dollar.

That meant whoever bought into it right now would lose.

If you put in 100,000 dollars, you would end up with only 5000 dollars.

“45.10 dollars.”

As soon as the price of bitcoin reached 45 dollars, Woosung started to sell his bitcoins fast.