After the Divorce, I Found a Thousand Bitcoins - Chapter 2

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

I Got Divorced and Found a Thousand Bitcoins Episode 002

I first learned about Bitcoin through Kwangho.

“Hey, do you know about something called Bitcoin?”

“What’s that?”

“Some programmer friends told me about it. They say it could become a new currency.”

“A new currency? Money is already everywhere in the world anyway.”

“In America, they even bought pizza with this stuff.”

“Huh, really?”

“Yeah, someone bought pizza with 10,000 bitcoins and it became a huge topic.”

“How much is pizza in America? About 20,000 won? If it’s 10,000 coins, that’s about 2 won each.”

It was actually Bitcoin worth 40 dollars, but information was scarce back then.

“The important thing is that it functions as currency. Doesn’t it seem like MMORPG cyber money appeared in real life?”

“You’re right. That’s interesting.”

At first, it was just curiosity.

For us who played a lot of RPG games back then, it felt like we could use game money in real life too.

Plus, since I was studying programming, I was naturally interested.

“Should we try buying some?”

“How much money do you have?”

When Kwangho asked, I checked my bank account and had about a million won.

“I have a million won.”

“The current Bitcoin price is… Hey, it went up a bit?”

“How much?”

“About 4 cents each?”

“Whoa, why is the chart like this? It really went up.”

The price had risen like crazy.

“What should we do? Give up?”

“Let’s just buy it. Seeing the price go up, it might go up even more. And even if not, we’ll keep it as a memory.”

“Should we?”

“Go for it~!”

“Okay!”

Was it the passion of youth?

I didn’t ignore the god of impulse buying and boldly bought Bitcoin.

The buying process was quite difficult, but I could speak English and used Reddit often, so I succeeded in purchasing.

And then I forgot about it.

No, to be precise, after going to the military and being busy with college life and dating, it disappeared from my memory.

“When Bitcoin was soaring high, Kwangho sold off his coins.”

He liquidated all 500 coins he had when Bitcoin broke through a thousand dollars.

At the exchange rate then, it was close to 700 million won.

“Hey, you should sell yours quickly too.”

“Huh? Bitcoin? I definitely put that on a USB somewhere…”

Back then, I thought I had forgotten about it.

I came home and searched for a long time but couldn’t find it.

“Damn! I must have forgotten about it.”

“You idiot, I’ll buy you drinks. Just forget about it.”

“Hey! You got 700 million. I had more coins than you!”

“Is that my fault? It’s your fault for forgetting. I heard someone threw away their hard drive and is digging through garbage dumps looking for it. Why don’t you do that too.”

“Damn… Should I really do that?”

“Hey hey, forget it, let’s go. I’ll buy you Korean beef.”

Thanks to that, the meat I got from him must have been worth several million won.

He even took me on overseas trips, so I didn’t know how grateful a friend he was.

So I could forget about it.

I had lost a huge amount of money, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t live my life.

But.

[Balance : 1000BTC]

The number of bitcoins in the USB I found again was beyond imagination.

“Huh…”

I was momentarily speechless at something so far removed from reality.

After staring blankly at the monitor for about ten minutes, I took out my smartphone and accessed a cryptocurrency exchange.

After fingerprint authentication, I saw Bitcoin’s price on the main screen.

[Bitcoin]

[174,524,844 won]

174 million won each.

Since I had a thousand bitcoins.

“174 billion?!”

My jaw dropped.

* * *

Korea had a very large cryptocurrency market.

In other words, many people were doing it.

In the past, there was a strong perception that investing in things like stocks would ruin your household.

But as perceptions about financial management changed in the 2010s, the number of people investing in cryptocurrency increased.

Especially as stories of people turning their lives around with cryptocurrency were actually heard from people around them, everyone started investing in coins without exception.

Naturally, communities became active too.

Various posts were uploaded to Coin Korea, the largest cryptocurrency community in Korea.

From meaningful information posts to free bulletin boards where people posted miscellaneous content.

As the coin market operated 24 hours, the community was also active 24 hours.

“What kind of idiots will be spouting nonsense today?”

Kim Min-su, a self-proclaimed coin trader, checked charts as soon as he woke up and habitually accessed Coin Korea.

Instead of necessary boards like the news board, he first looked for the free bulletin board and sorted posts by recommendations.

“Huh?”

What caught his eye first was.

[A Bitcoin wallet that slept for 13 years has moved.]

13 years ago meant the early days of Bitcoin.

Coins moving from a wallet created back then?

He was intrigued.

Click!

When he clicked the title, he saw a scraped English article.

“Ugh, damn it. At least post a summary.”

Scroll!

Suppressing his rising irritation, he scrolled down the screen.

It definitely wasn’t because he couldn’t read English that he skipped the article.

“Oh, there’s a 3-line summary.”

Fortunately, there was a summary at the end of the main text.

[1. 1 BTC was withdrawn from a wallet where Bitcoin hadn’t moved for 13 years.]

[2. Tracking the transaction of this withdrawn Bitcoin confirmed it went to Bitmarket’s wallet. In other words, there’s a 99.9% chance the owner of this wallet is Korean.]

[3. This Bitcoin wallet still has 999 bitcoins remaining. At current prices, that’s over 170 billion won.]

After reading all three lines of the summary, he had one thought.

“Damn, life is unfair! Some people barely make 100,000 won a day even with intense trading. But someone made 170 billion in one go? Damn…!”

And they say it’s a Korean person too.

He was beyond envious to the point his stomach hurt.

The community reaction was similar too.

-Wow… 170 billion down the drain.

-At this level, isn’t he a regressor?

For real lol

I regressed back in time and bought it 13 years ago.

-But why is he only moving 1 BTC?

Well, it’s probably just moving it as a test for now.

They’re doing the test with 170 million lol

-That’s not the problem right now. Bitcoin started falling because of this incident.

You think this will make Bitcoin drop?

ㄴOriginally when whales move, the price drops.

-I wish someone would buy me just one Melona.

I’m Hamboogie.

The mention of Bitcoin falling brought him back to reality.

“Shit! I went long yesterday!”

Unexpected sparks were flying.

* * *

An hour after sending the Bitcoin, an alert came from CoinMarket.

[Bitcoin has been deposited.]

When he launched the app and entered, the numbers in his previously zero balance had changed.

[Holdings]

[BTC]

[Quantity Held: 1BTC]

[Valuation: 173,524,921 won]

In one hour, Bitcoin’s price had dropped by a million won.

But that wasn’t what mattered.

“It really came through.”

He had proven that the Bitcoin in his cold wallet was real.

“If I move the remaining 999 Bitcoin, I’ll really become an asset holder worth 170 billion won.”

Suddenly, memories from when he got married came to mind.

‘Jeonse instead of buying?’

Soe’s contemptuous gaze when they couldn’t buy a house due to rising apartment prices and loan regulations was vivid.

“With 170 billion, I could even buy an apartment in Cheongdam.”

Not just a Cheongdam apartment, but if he wanted, he could even buy a building.

That’s how enormous the money he had gained was.

“I’m rich now!”

His life had changed.

* * *

The next day.

Kang Hyeon woke up early and finished showering.

For the first time in a while, he even shaved 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.

Even when going to court, he had just worn casual clothes, so it seemed like it had been over a month.

Leaving his house, he drove for the first time in a while to an office building in Gangnam.

He checked the nameplates in the building where various companies were located and moved to the elevator.

And the place he arrived at was Samil Accounting Firm.

“Welcome, how may we help you?”

“I’m Choi Kang-hyeon. I made a consultation appointment by phone yesterday.”

Guided by the desk staff, he moved to a luxurious reception room.

After waiting briefly, a man who appeared to be in his 40s entered.

The man with neat pomade hair greeted Kang Hyeon politely.

“Hello. I’m Manager Jeong Min-jun, who assisted you with guidance over the phone yesterday.”

“I’m Choi Kang-hyeon.”

“What would you prefer to drink? We have everything prepared from coffee to juice.”

“Could I have an iced americano?”

“Of course.”

After asking a subordinate, Jeong Min-jun closed the reception room door.

The two men then took seats facing each other.

“When you contacted us yesterday, I heard you want to liquidate some coins?”

“Yes. Given the scale, it seems like the National Tax Service would investigate if I liquidate recklessly.”

“That’s correct. Although capital gains tax has been deferred, liquidating large-scale coins at once would trigger an investigation from the National Tax Service. May I know roughly what scale we’re talking about?”

Recently, many young tycoons had emerged through coins.

Since Samil Accounting Firm had many occasions to manage or consult coin tycoons, Jeong Min-jun treated Kang Hyeon with formality.

‘Judging by his concern about tax audits, it must be over 10 billion, right?’

The fact that he contacted an accounting firm rather than a tax accountant meant he had done his research.

So he expected it to be over 10 billion.

“It’s about 170 billion.”

“…Excuse me?”

The answer he heard far exceeded his expectations.

* * *

He returned home after finishing the consultation.

In conclusion, it didn’t seem like there would be any major problems.

“Well, it’s not illegal funds anyway.”

Even if the National Tax Service launched an investigation, there wasn’t really anything to get caught on.

However, since handling such matters individually would consume too much time and effort, he signed a contract with the accounting firm.

From now on, accounting matters would be handled through Samil.

“From now on, I just need to move coins and convert them to cash. Or should I keep some as coins?”

What he needed to do now was create a portfolio.

“If the coin ratio is too high, the risk becomes too great. I need to convert some to cash and buy stocks or buildings for sufficient hedging.”

Since investment was his specialty, he could envision how to construct a portfolio.

“It would be good to buy a building in Gangnam, right? Unless there’s a war, prices here will keep rising.”

Since real estate wasn’t his specialty, he put it on the back burner for now.

“Should I look at the US stock market?”

Sitting on the living room sofa, he opened his tablet PC and launched a securities program.

“It’s risen quite a bit while I wasn’t looking for a month.”

These were charts he used to check daily, but after going through divorce and resignation, he had completely let go of them.

Meanwhile, the stock market had been rising daily, hitting new highs.

“Now I can invest freely.”

One of the most inconvenient things about working as a prop trader was the restrictions on personal investment.

Of course, since it wasn’t a major securities company, the restrictions weren’t severe, but it was inconvenient nonetheless.

Now that he was an individual, there were no trading restrictions at all.

“Let’s see…”

When he clicked the menu to view his bookmarked stocks, about a hundred stocks appeared.

Stock names and price changes were displayed simply.

He was scrolling down checking the stocks when something caught his eye.

“Hmm?”

One stock caught his attention.

[Core Wave]

It was a representative company that provided cloud-based infrastructure to AI developers.

It was a stock that had been rising daily due to the recent strength of AI stocks.

That stock caught his eye for a completely different reason.

“Why is this glowing blue?”

Because only that stock was glowing with a blue light.

Thinking he might be seeing things, he rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand.

And looked again.

“It’s still glowing.”

It continued to glow.

In blue, which indicated a stock price decline.

“No way… that can’t be.”

Though he denied it with words, his heart was pounding violently.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————