The Importance of Psychology
Sora's studio apartment.
It had been a while since he'd last stopped by.
Back then it was a garbage dump.
Cup ramen containers had been stacked into mountains. She never did laundry, never washed, and the whole place reeked.
"Come in already."
"Oh? Look at you."
She seemed to have cleaned up a little these days. She opened the door with that cocky line.
Not as pink-and-frilly as Hye-ri's place, but…
It still gave off that female-room vibe. She was apparently keeping things reasonably tidy now.
"You've got dolls, too."
"None of your business."
"No dildo?"
"W-why would I have one?!"
There was still one disappointing gap. Finding a dildo would have immediately locked in the yass angle. It would also have been proof she'd been opened up. She might have stashed it somewhere, but nothing was visible. He genuinely had no idea how she was dealing with her sex drive.
"So, the results?"
"I don't know."
"Account got wrecked, huh?"
"No, it did not!"
Sora was sticking her lower lip out in a full pout. She wouldn't meet his eyes—just shrieking.
Looks like she's about to eat the lunch of a failed investor.
Her mood was clearly rotten. But what needed settling still had to be settled.
Over the past week she had been trading coins. For someone who'd been sulking, the return was pretty solid—in absolute terms, anyway. But the bet was decided on relative terms. Yoo-min hadn't been sitting idle either.
"I only just figured out how good this is~ Thank you, Master Mansu, woof woof!"
Coin streams. She had started them on his recommendation, but she was grinding hard on her own now.
She'd tasted the fun of making money.
Lately coins were in a full bull run—an absolutely massive one. Even complete beginners were printing.
"Bitcoin's up 10 percent, Ethereum 15 percent?"
"……"
"What's Sora-ssi's excuse for only grabbing 5 percent?"
"Tch."
A 5 percent return wasn't much. Yoo-min, who had basically just sat there, had come out further ahead. No wonder Sora's lip was sticking out. If she herself had simply done nothing, she would have won.
That "just sit there" part was exactly what made investing hard. There was a reason the sleeping-pill method existed.
"Honestly, it feels kind of unfair."
"Can't accept the loss?"
"If it had been stocks I could've traded with more conviction."
"Hmm."
"Coins are basically just tulips, so…"
Sora had her own excuses lined up. He understood exactly what she was trying to say.
She's talking about the tulip mania.
The speculative frenzy that hit the Netherlands in the seventeenth century. Tulip prices exploded at insane speed—until a single bulb was worth an entire house. Then one day it all collapsed.
"So you felt uneasy?"
"Yes…"
"You really only know one thing and miss the other ninety-nine."
"That's just a fancy way of saying I don't know, you bastard."
They shared the surface similarity of value being assigned to something that had none. Coins could be compared to that. But the devil is in the details. You had to look through the eyes of the people living then. Were tulips really a valueless commodity?
"When tulip prices were skyrocketing, the Netherlands was a superpower dominating the world through the East India Company."
"Yeah, I guess so."
"So Amsterdam, the capital, became the center of global finance, and the Dutch—raking in money from every direction—were swimming in massive liquidity."
"!!"
That was simply the normal state of the era. Pineapples were sold to nobles as expensive ornamental plants. Tulips were just rarer. And one more phenomenon piled on top: even commoners started paying attention to tulips.
"Most trading happened in the form of bulbs, before the flowers even bloomed."
"Really?"
"If a rare tulip flowered from the bulb, you made a killing. Think of it as a kind of gacha game."
"Oh…"
It wasn't that ordinary tulips were expensive. Only the rare colors that bloomed occasionally carried real value. They were ranked by color—Emperor grade, Governor grade, Admiral grade, and so on. People started gambling on bulbs for the jackpot. The odds were low, of course. But winners still appeared. And the people who envied those winners piled into the market. Everyone bought. As more participants flooded in, tulip prices soared day after day.
"That's the process of a bubble forming."
"Coins rose the exact same way, though…"
"There's one difference, isn't there? It's still not 'everyone and their dog' yet."
"Ah!"
Right now only people already interested in investing even knew about it. The moment every random person and their household pet jumped in—that was the classic top signal. You didn't even need to study history to have heard the saying: when everyone around you is buying, it's the top.
"I think I get what you mean. I also thought it would go a bit further, but…"
"But?"
"The thought that it could turn into tulips at any second just kept circling in my head."
The real problem was that even when you knew, you still couldn't act on it. Human emotion was not easily controlled—whether it was coins or stocks. There was a more fundamental reason. Even during the tulip mania, people who made money still existed. The difference between those who won and those who lost. Every investment required one prior condition. Sora simply didn't have it yet. It was about time she shed another layer.
"What do you think is the difference between you and her that decides who wins?"
"I don't know."
"Female cam girl."
"You fucking bastard."
This was the important part.
The stream had changed.
"For real? I went to sleep and woke up rich!"
Yoo-min was satisfied. Just coming up with content as a BJ was already work. It was quietly exhausting. Every single day you had to invent a new talking point. Even the same reactions got old if you repeated them. Coins, on the other hand—by the time you woke up, something had already happened. Viewers brought the stories to you on their own.
"Insane. Ten thousand star balloons just exploded! Is there a single sucker left who can't make money with coins?"
All she had to do was react appropriately. That alone generated content for the whole stream. And the money was nicely stacking up too. The amounts she was making from coins weren't small. Yoo-min, who had started with tiny positions, was steadily increasing her size. On good days it ballooned by a million won. Of course, greed sometimes got her bagholding as well.
"Really? But what's Nasdaq?"
She wasn't particularly worried. She still had her main job. She glanced at the chat, then put on the most pitiful face she could manage.
"Coins dropped a ton too… I went full long, what do I do now."
Viewer reactions poured in—everything from pure roasting to sympathetic "I got rekt too" solidarity. But that wasn't what Yoo-min was fishing for. Sure enough, a sharp-eyed whale stepped up.
They covered her losses. Whenever she put on a sad face, the whales stepped in and fired star balloons.
"Master Mansu, five thousand balloons, what is this~♡ Woof woof! Wait, Mansu got rekt too??"
After an hour or two of whining, the losses were usually covered. Star-balloon income had jumped massively compared to before—because coin investors had flooded in. Even excluding Mansu, there were more than a few of them.
I hope it drops more. Then I can look even more pitiful.
When coins fell, the collection was delicious. Of course, when they rose, the balloons exploded in proportion. No matter which way it went, she made money. For Yoo-min, coins had become a stable job.
Stream content plus side income on top. The mental satisfaction was quietly huge as well. She was making money with her own hands. Earning through investing delivered a peculiar kind of pleasure.
I made this with my own skill, right?
She was hooked. She was actively studying coins now, and she had become one of the representative coin BJs on PaprikaTV. All of it thanks to Chanuk. Meeting him had been the best decision of her life.