The Real Sex Rally
The crypto surge.
It should have been good news for the economics students who'd been bagholding all this time.
"Crypto's mooning hard, right?"
"Yeah."
"Huh? Why the long face? Weren't you into crypto?"
"I sold it all ages ago!"
Things hadn't gone so smoothly for them.
There was a vast gulf between theory and practice.
I never thought it'd go up that much.
It had hit -7%.
At the time, all he could think was, please just let me break even!
He'd put in a sell order.
When it filled, he'd cheered.
But the human heart is fickle.
Once the price skyrocketed, other thoughts crept in.
"You didn't buy back in?"
"Nope."
"Why not?"
"Holding it just makes me anxious. I'll just chalk it up as experiencing what investing is like."
At first, he felt regret.
Then irritation.
Why didn't it rise when I was holding it?
He'd kicked his blanket more times than he could count.
As time passed, he started questioning himself.
Even if I'd held, I probably would've sold the moment it went up, heart pounding.
To make a profit, you have to endure the dips too.
He didn't have the guts for that.
Just confirming that much was meaningful in its own way, wasn't it?
Yuroa decided to think of it that way.
But there were people who couldn't.
If it's gonna rise, don't drop, you fucking bastard!
Dae-hoon had bought a total of nine million won in crypto.
Advanced allowance plus rent money: six million won.
Plus three million from an emergency loan.
All to average down.
His eyes had gone wild with the thought of recovering his losses.
If he'd held, he could've made hundreds of thousands even after interest.
If he'd held.
It's so unfair I could go crazy. Why does this only happen to me!
There had been movement before the surge.
It had crept up teasingly, then crashed.
He was dumbfounded.
No—tears came.
It had risen all year, so why only when he bought?
Then another surge hit.
Thinking it was his last chance, Dae-hoon hit the sell button.
The second I sell, it rises like a ghost, right? When I buy, it drops.
It became the stupidest mistake of his life.
The surge.
It climbed to +12% without even pausing for breath.
Break-even psychology kicked in, and Dae-hoon bought again.
Because he'd heard it would go to ten million, even hundreds of millions.
It felt like someone was watching him.
The very next moment, it dropped and hit -6%.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.... Just you watch, I'll never sell again.
Another loss?
What tormented Dae-hoon more was the sense of loss from not making money.
Even out of spite, he couldn't give up.
Filled with venom, he stared at crypto all day long.
Tap, tap!
The process of getting addicted to crypto.
And he wasn't the only student like that.
The atmosphere in the lecture hall hadn't changed much from before.
Is it gonna surge again?
I should've just diamond-handed it.
I was an idiot celebrating a 1% gain.
Even with the price having risen so much, not many had made a profit.
They couldn't endure the extreme volatility.
But interest in crypto had definitely increased.
Because they'd seen it moon right before their eyes.
"President."
"Do-kyung hyung."
"We were wrong. Please take us back into the club."
"Crypto never turns away those who come."
""President!""
The Crypto Club reaped the benefits.
The members who'd left came back.
If you do crypto, you can make money easily!
An unthinking faith was born.
Just hold it and you make money for sure, right? How hard is that?
For Joo Do-kyung, it was exhilarating.
What he believed was right.
Crypto is the currency of the future.
It will definitely moon.
When that day comes, they will be the victors.
"Crypto will definitely moon. Do you believe?"
""We believe!""
"It rises way more than stocks. Do you believe?"
""We believe!""
Just believe in the value of crypto, never doubt, and strive every day.
Simple.
Doing something as good as this and messing with stocks instead. Idiots.
With stocks, you dither over whether to buy this or that and end up only losing money.
Smart-aleck idiots.
The upside is higher with crypto too.
Joo Do-kyung was certain the Crypto Club would overtake the Stock Club.
But there were people thinking differently.
"Crypto went up a ton, huh?"
"Yeah."
"But I don't really feel envious."
The Stock Club.
Separate from the crypto surge, it was running well.
Because they'd realized the appeal of stocks.
Only after doing crypto did they seem to understand the difference between the two.
"Holding it makes you anxious."
"Right~?"
"The crypto kids can't even live their daily lives."
"They're always on their phones."
Conviction.
Stocks have reasons for their ups and downs.
The stock price is dropping because of this or that bad news.
Once that bad news is resolved, won't it rebound?
Even if you're equally anxious, there's a time limit, so it's bearable.
With crypto, when it drops, all sorts of thoughts really flood in....
Chae-won had been shaken once before.
If not for that experience, she'd be doing crypto now.
Why?
Because the price was exploding upward!
To someone who didn't know, crypto looked like a guaranteed money-maker if you just bought it.
"There's no way a big company like Ohsung Electronics or SQ Technics would go under."
"Even if you're bagholding, you can hold on while collecting dividends."
"Dividends?"
"Yeah! Money they give every year. Ohsung Electronics does quarterly dividends, so it's even sweeter."
They came to understand that wasn't the case.
The size of the role psychology plays in investing.
It was more important than one might think.
Actually, more than that.
The fact that it helped with studying was a nice bonus too.
For economics students, stocks were practically a real-world battlefield.
A place to test their knowledge.
It even helped sometimes in understanding what they'd learned.
"Is student Lee Chanuk here?"
"Professor!"
"The professor's here!"
"Excuse me. This is a space for students...."
"It's fine. Come on in comfortably~."
"No, please come often!"
The professor visited often too.
Professor Choi Myeong-cheol of Principles of Economics entered bashfully.
Because he was into stocks.
He'd come chat or even blatantly fish for picks.
He seems to get along weirdly well with that strange senior.
Early first semester.
There'd been a ruckus about Water Rockets and whatnot.
She knew a video had even gone up on YouTube.
Since faces weren't shown, it had ended as a story only the department students knew, but residual heat couldn't be avoided.
An awkward relationship had continued.
"Chanuk oppa isn't here yet."
"Is that so? I came expecting something promising after semiconductors...."
"After semiconductors?!"
She'd thought it would be like that, but the parties involved themselves seemed to be getting along fine.
Maybe the stocks Chanuk had taught him....
Hit it big?
If so, it made sense why a Hankuk University professor would come looking for a mere student.
Thinking normally, he could just tell him to come.
Chae-won was curious too.
Semiconductors.
Even though she'd gotten in late, she was already up over 7%.
"I heard about it."
"Did you?"
"Yes, Chanuk oppa said it wasn't the time yet, but...."
If they could grow it again?
It wasn't simply making another few percent profit.
It becomes compound interest.
Not just the principal, but the profits grow too.
As time passes, it will grow like a snowball.
Something impossible with crypto.
Except for some altcoins, they all rise together and fall together.
"There must be people who made big money with crypto."
"Probably."
"It did go up a lot."
"The nouveau riche will consume some biased goods.... Not yet—he said to buy when the profit-flexing gets noisy."
Maximizing profits with day trading might be possible, but it was too much for them who weren't professional investors.
In contrast, stocks.
What do you buy when you become a sudden millionaire? Luxury goods?
Cycle investing.
Moving around to promising sectors and continuously making profits was possible.
Of course, that wasn't easy either.
But if you keep at it, you'll come to know.
"Ah, no way...."
"Professor, do you know what it is?"
"Excuse me, I have a lecture next."
"Professor, you don't have a next lecture!"
"So mean!"
Because your skills will grow.
Far more beneficial than crypto where you just buy with faith and diamond-hand.
Chae-won had come to know the good points of stocks.
There are things you see only after leaving once.
The other members' loyalty had increased too.
The Stock Club was running solidly.
It turned out just like Chanuk oppa said, hehe.
The crypto surge.
There could be aftereffects from it.
Something was needed to hold onto the members.
So he'd taught only her.
Hye-ri remembered every word Chanuk had said without missing a single one.
The second wave will be luxury-related stocks, right? What are kids who made easy money gonna do? Spend it easily.
Department stores, duty-free shops, or places that distribute luxury goods themselves.
It'd be good to add overseas stocks to the watchlist too.
Luxury is more foreign than Korean, after all.
Hye-ri had the brains to understand that much.
Finally, the third wave is PaprikaTV. Why PaprikaTV out of nowhere? Once people's material vanity is satisfied, what's next? It's obvious.
She still didn't quite get the next part.
No, she didn't even know what PaprikaTV itself was.
Isn't that a place with girl streamers or something? Like Cheolkkuraji or whatever.
She knew a few famous terms.
But she couldn't imagine how it connected to crypto.
No need to know.
She just had to quietly follow whatever Chanuk told her to do.
Crypto.
In fact, it had a very close connection to Korea.
Not particularly because there are a lot of crypto scammers or anything.
Korea is the most internet-developed country in the world.
And this influences things both for good and for bad.
Good influences.
There would be various ones.
But when it comes to crypto-related, most are not good.
If one were to pick the most representative, it would be PaprikaTV.
It might seem absurd at first glance.
Where are the kids who made money with crypto gonna spend it?
If it's a million or ten million won, they'll buy delicious food and change their clothes.
But more than that?
There were people who'd become overnight millionaires.
Mentally the same, but they'd made a ton of money.
Desire for recognition.
They wanted someone to acknowledge the fact that they'd made a lot of money.
Mingi noona, I cleaned up big today thanks to you!!
That's why they fall into internet broadcasting.
Because it's a place where you can get recognition as long as you have money.
There is that kind of fun to it.
Sometimes it becomes entertainment.