3
# Chapter 3
## IPSC
I thought that the very existence of cryptocurrency exchanges was
the final point of failure for cryptocurrency.
They had aimed for decentralization, yet what ended up happening was that people relied on centralized systems called
exchanges to convert their value into dollars.
Time passed, Bitcoin's halving came and went,
and the desires of the masses were once again set ablaze.
More powerful computing power became necessary to provide nodes to the Bitcoin blockchain—in other words, to mine.
Strangely enough, the more difficult mining became,
the more fiercely the flames of desire within the public grew.
Just as during the Industrial Revolution,
wealth had been accumulated by exploiting labor.
This was the accumulation
of intangible, conceptual value by burning energy.
At the time, I was simply keeping the Bitcoin I had mined in my wallet while becoming absorbed in another curiosity.
It wasn't long before
Mt. Gox, the cryptocurrency exchange, was pushed to the brink of collapse due to hacking. Even then, I never touched the
Bitcoin I possessed.
By that point, I already had no shortage of money.
Moreover, whether I intended it or not, my electronic wallet had become known as a whale's wallet. So even when I merely
divided my Bitcoin among different wallets, the market would fluctuate.
Satoshi Nakamoto never converted the Bitcoin in his wallet into cash. And at some point, he disappeared without a trace.
The person to whom Satoshi first sent coins, Hal Finney, who had played a crucial role in the Bitcoin blockchain, also
passed away.
I believed that Hal Finney was Satoshi Nakamoto. I suspected that he had staged the whole thing himself, but I never
once said it out loud.
I simply waited for people's interest in my electronic wallet to die down.
But my wallet address had long been under constant monitoring, and there were still people who suspected that it was
Satoshi's second wallet.
In any case, I gradually converted it into cash.
And every time I did, the price of Bitcoin would fluctuate.
I also invested in or advised several blockchain projects using my surplus funds.
However, it didn't take long for me to become disappointed with the so-called shitcoins, as altcoins were often called.
The members of the projects I had invested in had no interest in realizing anything beyond what they had promised.
Instead, they became absorbed in a money game and behaved in ways that were frankly unsightly.
I stopped making any further investments. I withdrew while placing the coins and tokens allocated to me under a lock-up
period.
I also made sure to delete my name from all of their white papers. Even if I suffered a major loss in the process, I did
everything I could to ensure that my name did not remain. I was almost paranoid about it.
Whether something was good or bad, things turned out better when the left hand didn't know what the right hand was
doing.
It was a habit, or perhaps an obsession, that had been formed when I was a child, from playing marbles and ddakji.
In any case,
the wheel of desire was bound to keep turning.
Sure enough,
in 2017, the price of Bitcoin exploded to 25 million won.
I sold off some of the Bitcoin I held, and as time passed, I also sold off all the shitcoins and tokens whose lock-up
periods had expired.
The bubble of desire was bound to burst.
Bitcoin once again
crashed to 3 million won in 2019.
I bought back as much as I had sold in 2017.
And then,
when it surpassed 80 million won on March 8, 2021, I sold 40,000 Bitcoin.
In July of that year, the price fell back into the 30-million-won range. I bought another 20,000.
In October 2021, when it recovered its previous high of 80 million won, I sold the 20,000 I had purchased earlier.
More recently,
I joined the GameStop war involving overseas stocks. It began simply out of the desire to land a punch on those
despicable? short-selling forces.
It was incredibly easy. (That's what I mean in hindsight.)
Buy low, sell high. Then buy low again, and sell when the price went up.
But.
A bubble driven by emotional, inflammatory rhetoric was bound to burst. I couldn't afford to go down with that bubble. I
had to get out at the decisive moment.
When I decided that I had given the short-selling forces a sufficient message,
I sold all of my GameStop shares and walked away.
Those who shouted 'One more time!' in their hearts ended up suffering huge losses.
In any case, I made nearly 1 trillion won from the GameStop war.
I also kept an eye on Terra and Luna.
But I could quickly tell that they were a Ponzi scheme waiting to explode someday.
Furthermore, because the scale of my investment could very well become the trigger that set it off, I lost interest.
And so, over the past ten years,
the net worth I had built up surpassed 9 trillion won.
Of course, most of it was cash-equivalent assets, and the Bitcoin I still held was not included.
More than anything, what satisfied me was that I had managed to remain hidden to an extent commensurate with the size of
the wealth I had accumulated.
Being noticed would certainly feel good in any world, but with that attention came enemies, and naturally, a great deal
of troublesome business.
It wasn't as though I could spend it all before I died, and I had donated plenty as well.
Quietly and indirectly, I had also made sure that even my relatives and friends could all make a decent living.
The unfortunate thing was that many people had followed my advice or assistance in the opposite direction.
About ten years ago, when I went all-in on stocks during the financial crisis, they called me crazy.
When they saw me mining Bitcoin, they clicked their tongues.
When Bitcoin fell into the 3-million-won range in 2019, I advised them, 'Just buy one.'
They laughed at me, saying, 'Cryptocurrency is over.'
I learned later that
when I was buying stocks, these people bought houses, and when the price of Bitcoin surpassed 70 million won and I was
watching for the right time to sell, they couldn't resist and bought it instead.
From now on, I decided not to do anything more for them than occasionally paying for a drink.
In any case, once my sense of indebtedness for the good fortune I had received disappeared,
I decided to be rewarded for
the years I had spent fighting so fiercely.
I indulged in all kinds of entertainment as a form of compensation. But the tension it relieved only lasted for a brief
moment.
In other words, easy pleasures didn't last.
So I sought them out more often, and my body began to deteriorate.
Then I realized.
Those things were far too small compared to the size of the wealth I possessed.
I decided to try, one by one, the things I had vaguely dreamed about since childhood.
To do that,
I had to buy time.
I established a company to buy back the freedom of my own time.
On the surface, it was an asset management company.
But in reality, it was a company that managed my assets and acted as a butler, taking care of all sorts of miscellaneous
affairs on my behalf.
Once everything around me had been put in order, I decided to go looking for some new form of enjoyment.
The first thing I started was obtaining a Level 4 license from IPSC (International Practical Shooting Confederation).
Level 4 was a qualification that allowed me to participate in international practical shooting competitions.
As luck would have it, a domestic association had already been established.
I applied for the training, passed Level 3 over the course of two months, and was waiting for the Level 4 test.
Live-fire shooting was impossible in Korea.
Once enough candidates had gathered,
the Korean association would establish a test site overseas and conduct the test there.
This time, it was Mongolia.
The day finally came,
and I boarded the plane with my heart pounding with excitement.
I landed at Chinggis Khaan International Airport in Mongolia. Right in front of the airport's fence, I could see horses
grazing.
As we drove to the accommodations, the endless plains and blue sky stretching beyond the car window sent a shiver
through my entire body.
The next day.
We drove deep into the Mongolian grasslands.
No matter which direction I looked,
it was a desert where the sky and sand dunes seemed to meet.
In the middle of it all stood an isolated test range. The association officials who had departed ahead of us were
waiting there.
Paper targets, steel targets, and cover had been set up according to the designated course layout.
We had to use firearms rented locally.
Fortunately, there was a CZ75-SP01 Shadow 2, which was my preferred model.
The reason I had chosen this gun was because among the airsoft guns that could legally be owned in Korea, the Shadow 2
was the same weight as the real firearm.
And somehow, guns made from polymer materials like Glocks had never managed to capture my heart.
I walked around the test range once with everyone else for mental visualization training, and then all preparations were
complete.
* Holster!
* Ready~
* Beep!
The sound of the shot timer rang in my ears.
* Bang-bang, bang-bang, bang, bang-bang, bang.
The rules required two hits on each paper target,
while a single hit was required for each steel target.
The white targets were considered hostages. Since hitting them would result in a deduction or disqualification, I
couldn't simply fire indiscriminately.
And the final stage was a Mozambique Drill.
After quickly hitting the target twice, the final shot had to hit the head.
Shooting while running was somewhat strenuous, but I passed with a fairly decent score.
Now,
I wanted a gun of my own.
[Author's weapon]
It is not a real firearm, and the colored parts were removed for filming.