thenovelthief Chapter 145
Chapter 145
Translator: Dreamscribe“CEO-nim. Right now, there are rampant rumors on Wall Street. It looks like bear funds are really targeting Luna and Terra coins.”
There are two types of attacking forces.
One is the type that quietly builds up a position while secretly waiting for the right moment to strike.
The other is the type that intentionally reveals their position and intentions to the whole world.
In the case of the latter, it is a kind of strategy that causes fear among investors in the targeted asset and encourages other forces to join in on the attack.
“Tesla is the best example. The short-selling forces there openly reveal their positions, don’t they? Sometimes they get seriously burned, and other times they make a ton of money.”
Tesla falls under the latter category.
Isn’t it a stock known as Wall Street’s toy?
So, just looking at ETF products alone, there are ones that bet on Tesla’s stock price crashing, and conversely, there are also products that bet on those very ETFs failing instead.
The ETF market right now is truly a dopamine paradise.
“On top of that, the development of social media and online communities plays a big role too. Especially in the coin market, you can figure out who’s short-selling with just a bit of digging.”
“More than anything, the coin market is vulnerable to this kind of attack.”
“Yes. So, since they’ll get found out anyway, more and more are just going in openly.”
In the stock market, when one stock gets overheated, there are mechanisms to temporarily cool it down.
But with coins, there’s no safety bar.
Whether they shoot off to Mars, or plunge all the way to the bottom.
It’s one or the other.
It means the market is a perfect playground for the big players.
“After Luna and Terra were rejected by us for listing, it seems they pushed out some negative articles through various media outlets, but the major media is actually bashing Luna and Terra coins.”
“Should we see that as the attacking forces laying the groundwork in advance?”
“Yes. It’s basically an open warning. They’re saying they’re about to launch an attack, so either follow them or die. Pick one.”
How much ammunition must they have to act like this?
There are so many rumors.
Some say dozens of bear funds are participating in this attack, others say it’s just a bluff.
“Since the rumors are spreading everywhere, the price is already starting to shake.”
“Are they defending well?”
“Yes. It seems they’re issuing new coins to keep the value from dropping below 1 dollar.”
“So what do you think will happen? Will they hold out?”
“Looking at the current trend, when the real attack hits, it could create a death spiral.”
Death spiral.
It refers to a vortex where panic selling overlaps and overlaps, dragging everyone into it, ultimately causing the price to fall to an unrecoverable level.
“This depends entirely on the developers. The price may fluctuate significantly while defending against the attack, but if they keep pouring in money and resist to the end, things will eventually stabilize. And through this, the foundation will become even stronger.”
In the end, it means the future is determined by the founders who developed the coin.
“Usually, once they make enough money, they just pull a rug and leave, regardless of whether the price drops or not. But with Luna and Terra this time, there’s too much money tied up. The total amount has already surpassed 40 billion dollars. If they rug pull this, the aftermath will be truly immense.”
“I suppose that’s true?”
“Yes. If something of this scale collapses, governments around the world won’t be able to ignore it. The damages will be astronomical. The developers should be aware of that, so they’ll desperately try to stop it.”
That’s why people were reacting with disbelief at the idea of a rug pull.
But whenever I looked at Terra coin, my gut feeling had always been the same.
A dark, murky energy was swirling inside it.
Just like a death spiral.
“What about our coin?”
“Ah. The developers are actively working on building it as we speak. Since we have many highly skilled people, we expect the development to progress quickly. Also, we’re preparing marketing so that those who purchase the coin can use our platform at a slightly cheaper price.”
“What about the interest rate?”
“As a welcome benefit for first-time users, it’ll be 10% for the first year, and then set at 3 to 5% afterwards. Rather than offering overly high interest rates, the goal is to encourage more active use of our Kwangwoon platform.”
KW Coin.
It feels good.
My gut feeling was also radiating a golden glow from KW Coin.
“Looking at it like this, it kind of feels like we’re creating in-game cash.”
In games too, we need to buy the in-game currency created by the game itself if we want to purchase items.
Our coin had a similar concept.
“If we end up acquiring a game company later, it might be a good idea to have them use our coin, haha.”
Acquiring a game company, huh.
Come to think of it, we hadn’t acquired any game companies yet.
The company behind the game I play, what’s their situation these days?
Lately, I haven’t been too pleased with the patches...
***
“.......”
20% annual interest.
Yeah. Let’s admit it cleanly.
It was all bait.
What kind of product in this world could sustain a 20% annual interest rate?
Still, he thought if they threw out bait like that, investors would follow.
It’s just... too many investors ended up rushing in.
“This wasn’t the original plan...”
Before the launch, the idea was to cash out cleanly once they reached a certain target amount.
Just like the majority of coins out there.
But now that $40 billion had poured in, it wasn’t at a level they could just walk away from.
It had gotten too big to rug pull.
“CEO-nim. We’re reaching the limit. The attacks are too intense. If we want to defend now, loans won’t cut it.”
"You want me to put out my hard-earned money now?"
“We need to save the coin first, don’t we? Everyone’s panic selling right now, and the defense line has already been breached. You need to show some willpower here, or the investors won’t feel safe.”
The loan limits had already been maxed out.
What remained was the determination of the founders.
If they put up all their assets to defend the coin and build a new defensive line, supporters would surely rally behind them.
Just like how President Zelenkis ignited Ukraine’s fighting spirit against Russia’s all-out assault.
“Why do you think I’m already in Singapore doing all this?”
“Sir?”
“You know it too. 20% interest. It was a scam from the beginning. It was never a sustainable model.”
A bold offer to pay 20% interest through a DeFi service.
Of course, it was a service that could never last long.
But as the scale grew too large, even the DeFi system got overloaded and broke down earlier than expected.
“And the biggest problem is the media. Those bastards are the ones who killed us.”
As soon as the news spread that KW Exchange had rejected their listing, Kwon Gubo requested a major media outlet to publish articles criticizing KW Exchange.
But every major media outlet responded the same way.
'We don't know about others, but we can't touch Kwangwoon.'
At that moment, he once again felt the weight of Kwangwoon’s influence.
No matter how much money he threw at them, those who would relentlessly wield their pens against presidents or anyone else kept their sanity in front of Kwangwoon.
“They were scared. There are plenty of companies that were ruined after getting on Kwangwoon’s bad side.”
Instead, the major media turned their guns on Luna Coin.
They claimed its system vulnerabilities and the 20% annual interest were outright scams.
Before that, they were praising him as Korea’s Milon Tusk.
The fact that the attacks began immediately after those articles were published led to one conclusion.
“Kwangwoon planned this from the very beginning.”
They knew about Luna Coin’s vulnerabilities.
So they blocked it from entering KW Exchange, shook the price through the media, and then sent in the operators they had prepared to destroy the coin.
“CEO-nim. This is not the time to be sitting around like this. If we don’t inject capital quickly...”
“Capital? What capital? Even if I put in more money now, nothing will change.”
No. Even if it did change, he couldn’t afford to throw away his precious wealth just to defend the price.
After all, the coin was just a means to make money.
What's important is surviving alone even if everyone else dies.
***
“Wow… this is…”
“It’s like a blender. Complete chaos.”
Just like the staff were saying.
Right now, a giant mixer is running in the Bitcoin market.
“In the beginning, they seemed to be holding up well against the attacks by taking out loans here and there...”
"But they suddenly gave up around the middle?"
“Yeah. It was still a level they could’ve defended against, but it feels like they just gave up.”
The force attacking Luna Coin was stronger than expected.
And for good reason.
With the media launching an all-out attack as well, how could they possibly endure?
However, if they had continued pouring in money and shown a firm will to defend, the spiral would have stopped midway.
But the operators pulled out first and cut their losses.
“No matter what, how can they just abandon a coin that gathered over 40 billion dollars like this?”
“They probably didn’t want to spend their own money. Maybe this was their plan from the beginning. As things grew bigger than expected, they got greedy and missed the chance to get out.”
There are hundreds of scam coins like that, hit it big once and disappear.
But this was the first scam coin that went over 40 billion dollars.
“This will probably go down in crypto history. The problem is the lost amount is so huge, there's no way the government will just sit back and watch.”
“What about the CEO? Didn’t they say he was staying in contact consistently through SNS?”
“Yes. But the communication stopped before things blew up, and now he’s completely unreachable. He probably ran away in advance.”
A 40 billion dollar rug pull.
It’s not like he personally pocketed all 40 billion dollars.
But we could watch, in real time, as 40 billion dollars got shredded in the mixer.
“By the way... what do you think would’ve happened if our KW Exchange had accepted Luna Coin?”
“Then it would’ve easily gone over 50 billion dollars.”
This incident was somewhat related to me.
The beginning of it all was KW Exchange’s refusal to accept Luna Coin.
“There’s no need to feel guilty. Even if it had been listed on our exchange, the result would’ve been the same. This coin was created to scam from the start. If they really had conviction in the coin, they would’ve used all their own assets to defend the price. They wouldn’t have run away either.”
The Department Head was right.
Even so, I couldn’t help but feel a little guilty.
“Then, CEO-nim, what about offering some help through the coin we’re about to issue?”
At Hye-rin’s words, which broke through the gloom, a tingling sensation ran through me and brought me back.
“Help?”
“Yes. With the coin we’re issuing now. What if we investigate the affected individuals and provide them with some of our coins? Not a huge amount, of course, but something reasonable. It’ll have a promotional effect too, and boost activity for our coin, don’t you think?”
"Distributing coins to people as soon as we issue them?"
“Yes. Isn’t it a good idea?”
The victims of Luna Coin.
We couldn’t possibly cover all the losses they’d suffered.
And with so many victims, verifying and distributing the support coins would be complicated.
But.
“I like it.”
From the pleasant buzz running through me from head to toe, I knew this was a really good idea.
“Then how much should we set for the relief amount?”
With good intentions, I began jotting down figures in my notebook.
“......?”
But the number kept climbing.
100 billion... 200 billion... 300 billion... It rose endlessly until it finally stopped at one point.
“...1 trillion won.”
“What?!”
“C-CEO-nim!”
If we’re going to go big, might as well go all the way, that seemed to be the idea.
But this wasn’t just bold; it was a full-blown blizzard.
***
“Did they catch that bastard?”
“We’re currently tracking Kwon Gubo. We're cooperating internationally. Singapore was his last known location.”
President Aiden’s already deeply lined face grew even more furrowed.
How could it be that disasters were unfolding almost daily without pause?
This time, an incident occurred in the Bitcoin market where a staggering 40 billion dollars vanished in an instant.
“There are things that are only possible in the Bitcoin market. It’s not easy for that much money to disappear in such a short period of time.”
“That’s why we initially tried to tighten Bitcoin regulations, but the public backlash was so strong that we withdrew, right? But can this even be punished legally?”
“If we tie it up with the law, it’s possible. And the amount involved is simply too large.”
That’s true.
If the amount had been smaller, it would’ve never even reached President Aiden’s ears.
“On top of that, there’s another problem. Because of the Luna Coin incident, FTX, the world’s second-largest exchange, is now in crisis.”
“Why them now?”
“Due to this incident, Bitcoin prices have fallen across the board. FTX is directly tied to Luna Coin, and the investment firms that were supporting both Luna Coin and FTX are now going bankrupt one after another, causing doubts about FTX’s financial soundness.”
“So it’s actually in danger?”
“Yes. It’s not just speculation, FTX’s financial situation is indeed unstable. Investors are pulling out their funds, and there are signs of a digital bank run.”
If FTX collapses following Luna Coin, even more people will suffer losses.
“Do we really have to take responsibility for the damage done there?”
“No. We don’t need to offer a bailout. We’ll get blamed, but that’s just the nature of the crypto market. However, this incident will only increase Kwangwoon’s influence.”
Aiden furrowed his brow.
“Yeah. I know what you’re going to say. That Kwangwoon was behind everything, pulling the strings, and in the end, they’re the only ones who profited, right? That even this attack was their doing. I don’t even need to hear it anymore to know.”
“Actually... that’s not what I was going to say.”
“Hm?”
“Kwangwoon is now conducting a bailout for those harmed by Luna Coin. They’re distributing a full 1 trillion won.”
“What?! One trillion won? They’re giving out a bailout we aren’t even offering?”
What a bizarre bunch.
What do they have to gain from offering a bailout?
“If FTX shuts down, all the traffic will flow to KW Exchange anyway. Isn’t that what they were aiming for when they attacked Luna Coin? If so, there’s no need for such heavy-handed promotion.”
“Yes. But if you look closely, it only looks like a bailout on the surface. In reality, it’s something else. KW Exchange is about to issue a new coin, a stablecoin, like Luna Coin.”
“Wait. So the bailout is... with that coin?”
“Yes. If they’re giving out 1 trillion won worth of coins, that would typically trigger inflation, but it means they’re confident they have enough funds to handle that.”
If it’s Kwangwoon, there’s no way they’d collapse absurdly like Luna did.
“Well, if that’s how they want to promote their coin, who are we to stop them.”
Aiden quickly dismissed it from his mind.
After all, thousands of coins are launched every single day, aren’t they?
“President. This isn’t something to be taken lightly.”
“Isn’t it just another new coin? Happens every day.”
“Yes. But this time, it’s different. KW Coin will be usable on every platform operated by the Kwangwoon Group. Literally every application.”
“Usable like actual currency?”
“Yes. That’s exactly it. Unlike other coins, this one can truly be used like real money. That’s what Kwangwoon is about to introduce to the world.”
“......!?”
Only then did Aiden realize the gravity of the situation.
A coin usable like currency.
Why Kwangwoon had launched KW Exchange and entered the Bitcoin market so early.
Why they relentlessly crushed their competitors and expanded their size.
Now it all made sense.
“Don’t tell me these bastards...”
What is the philosophy behind Bitcoin?
Decentralization.
“Kwangwoon is now creating a new decentralized currency, trying to become the central authority within that system.”
The owner of the next-generation currency.
That was Kwangwoon’s true goal.