New York at Year’s End, Part 6
The headquarters of Newcurrency Enterprise and Coinmax were in the Cayman Islands, and so were the rest of his subsidiaries.
The way Leonard Chang made his money was simple.
He bought Vantcoin because he believed it had value, set up mining farms, and, thinking people would need a place to trade cryptocurrency, he built an exchange.
In one sense, it was something anyone could have done. But he had done it before anyone else even thought to try.
He had, quite literally, looked into the future.
Was that the sort of thing you needed to become the richest man in the world?
I asked Leonard Chang, “There are plenty of negative views on cryptocurrency, aren’t there?”
“There will always be people who look at a product with prejudice because they don’t understand it. But if you handed Vantcoin to someone who claimed cryptocurrency had no value, how do you think they’d react?”
“They’d bow their head and take it at once.”
He laughed out loud.
“Haha, exactly. Even if they say it has no value, they know that other people think it does.”
That was what money was, after all. If enough people believed something had value, then value really did emerge.
That was probably why trading on the exchange was still so active now.
At present, roughly ten thousand cryptocurrencies were being traded on the market, and there were more than five hundred exchanges.
The overwhelming number one in this market was, naturally, Coinmax.
It accounted for a staggering 23 percent of all cryptocurrency trading volume worldwide.
One of the surprising facts was that the fourth-largest exchange was a Korean one, BitUp.
Koreans really did love their coins....
“When I first said I was going to create an exchange, many people didn’t understand either. They all said it would fail. Coinmax wasn’t number one from the beginning, of course. There were plenty of difficulties. The biggest crisis was the hacking incident.”
Once people learned that cryptocurrency could be worth real money, hacking spread like wildfire.
SkyCox, once the world’s largest exchange, went bankrupt after a hack.
And Coinmax suffered one too, when its electronic wallets were drained and about 40,000 Vantcoin were stolen.
“At the time, it was a massive loss of eighty million dollars. By today’s standards, that would be a staggering 1.6 billion dollars.”
Eighty million dollars was something they could probably cover now without breaking a sweat, but back then it was equivalent to several years of operating profit.
Everyone thought Coinmax would have to declare bankruptcy.
But Leonard Chang escaped the crisis in a way no one had expected.
First, he openly admitted the exchange’s responsibility and promised to compensate the victims.
The problem was that he didn’t have money on hand, so instead the exchange issued its own coins to the victims and promised that, once it had the funds, the company would buy them back and convert them into cash.
“For compensation, we gave victims the cryptocurrency we had issued ourselves and deposited it into their wallets. Then, as the company earned money, we bought those coins back. At the same time, for anyone who needed cash immediately or didn’t trust the company’s promise, we listed the coins on the exchange so they could sell them right away.”
At first, the coins traded at about 20 to 30 percent of face value. But Coinmax really did keep buying back a fixed portion of the coins every time it turned a profit.
As the rumor spread, the price climbed closer and closer to the face value of one dollar, and three years after the hack, Coinmax had bought back and burned every coin it had issued, completing the compensation.
“That incident built public trust in Coinmax and pushed us to strengthen our defenses against hacking.”
When most exchanges shrugged off the losses and left victims to fend for themselves, Coinmax took responsibility to the end and paid them back.
As its reputation for reliability spread, more and more people flocked to Coinmax.
“So it rose to become the world’s number one exchange. I suppose the hack ended up being a blessing in disguise.”
Leonard Chang nodded.
“Yes. And there was another lesson we learned from that crisis.”
“What was it?”
“The need for stablecoins.”
The cryptocurrency issued for compensation was worth one dollar per coin.
At first its price dipped sharply, but because the exchange kept buying it at a dollar, the value of each coin never strayed far from ninety cents to one dollar.
Because its value was stable, holders didn’t panic and could wait until the compensation process was finished.
“So that was why you later issued Pether.”
“That’s right. Pether helped Coinmax grow enormously, and even the cryptocurrency market as a whole.”
Pether was a stablecoin issued by a subsidiary of Newcurrency Enterprise.
The greatest advantage of cryptocurrency was how convenient it was to trade.
Koreans might not feel it as acutely, but in underdeveloped countries with weak financial networks, it could be difficult even to open a bank account, and sending one dollar might cost ten dollars in fees.
Cross-border payments and remittances, in particular, took a long time and came with heavy charges.
Cryptocurrency, however, made use of blockchain, so as long as you had an internet connection, you could send money anywhere in the world without going through a bank.
So, did people actually use cryptocurrency a lot for real-world transactions and remittances?
Of course not.
All you had to do was search for cryptocurrency on a portal, and the related search term that came up was “investment,” not “trade” or “remittance.”
The reason was obvious: its value changed constantly.
If a coin worth one dollar became fifty cents an hour later, or two dollars, who would use it for payments?
That was why stablecoins had appeared.
Unlike ordinary cryptocurrencies, whose prices fluctuated constantly, stablecoins were pegged to a fixed value.
Various stablecoins had entered the market, and the largest, most widely used of them all was Pether.
As a fiat-currency-backed coin, one Pether was pegged to one dollar. Pay one dollar, and one Pether was issued; bring in one Pether, and you received one dollar.
“Pether made transactions much more convenient. It’s now widely used not only in cryptocurrency but in actual trade as well.”
Did the success of Pether make him certain that CBDCs would succeed too?
His expression and tone carried the unmistakable confidence of a man who had already won.
Honestly, it was admirable.
When everyone else thought it was impossible, he had taken the leap and succeeded.
If this had been the past, I probably would have considered it an honor just to sit across from him and speak face-to-face.
But not now.
Because I knew the future.
He handed me his business card.
“I’d like to talk more another time. If you have any questions, contact me whenever you like.”
“Of course. I enjoyed today.”
I took the card from him and handed over mine in return.
* * *
The party, which had started in early evening, grew steadily busier as the hours passed.
Before midnight, Sara and I left the venue and got into the limousine.
Sara asked me, “How was the party today?”
“It was fun.”
I had met, in person, the kind of con man I might one day only ever see in a movie, and I had also met the unofficial richest man in the world. It wasn’t the sort of experience you came by easily.
“You seemed to talk at length with Chairman Chang.”
“I heard a lot of interesting things.”
“Are you interested in cryptocurrency?”
“If it makes money.”
Something about what I’d heard today felt like it could turn into a good idea.
“What about you, Sara?”
“I enjoyed myself too. Thank you for spending the last day of the year with me.”
“Come to think of it, there are only about thirty minutes left until the new year.”
New Year’s Eve in New York.
For some reason, it felt a little wasteful to just go straight home like this.
I asked her, “We still have some time before midnight. Is there anywhere you’d like to go?”
“There should be a New Year’s event going on in Times Square right now.”
“Oh! Want to go see it?”
Every year on December 31, Times Square in New York held a New Year’s celebration.
From the look on her face, it seemed like she wanted to go.
Truthfully, I wanted to see it too. I wasn’t a New Yorker, and how many times in my life was I going to welcome the new year in Times Square?
The driver said, “Traffic is being controlled, so we can’t go in.”
“Then please take us as close as you can.”
“Understood. I’ll get you there as quickly as I can.”
Fortunately, we were already near Times Square. It wouldn’t take long.
The limousine set off, and the car carrying Sara’s bodyguards followed behind.
But before long, the road became completely jammed. We were stuck, unable to move in either direction.
Now there were only about twenty minutes left until midnight.
The driver said, “I can’t get any closer. You’ll have to walk from here.”
I handed him about ten hundred-dollar bills.
“You worked hard tonight. Happy New Year.”
He replied in a cheerful voice, “I hope you both have a happy New Year.”
When we got out of the car, two of the bodyguards stepped out of the vehicle behind us. It was a little annoying, but given her position, it couldn’t be helped.
We started walking toward Times Square.
“Are you cold?”
“No.”
The evening dress offered almost no protection from the cold, but fortunately she had a long coat that came down below her knees over it.
The real problem was the shoes.
Sara wobbled, and I quickly caught her.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
She said she was fine, but her feet looked anything but.
She was wearing killer heels with more than ten centimeters of height.
She’d been in them all through the party, and if she kept walking in them much longer, her ankles might not survive the night.
I looked around for a nearby place where she might buy shoes, but nothing suitable came into view. And I couldn’t exactly carry her on my back.
Just then, three women passed by.
One wore sneakers, one wore flats, and one wore low-heeled loafers.
At that moment, an idea came to me.
“Where did you get those heels?”
“Versace.”
“Are they precious to you?”
“No. I just wore whatever my secretary brought me.”
“Then let’s do this.”
I approached the women walking past and pointed at Sara.
“Excuse me. You see the heels that young lady is wearing?”
“Yes. What about them?”
“They’re Versace, apparently. Aren’t they pretty?”
Setting aside the brand, the crystal-studded shoes were obviously pretty and expensive-looking at a glance.
“So?”
“Her feet are hurting, so would you be willing to switch shoes with her?”
The sudden proposal left all three of them startled.
The woman in the middle asked suspiciously, “Are they really Versace?”
She seemed to suspect I might be trying to pull a fast one with a fake pair.
I happened to know a good way to dispel that kind of doubt.
I took my wallet out of my pocket.
“I’ll give you an extra five hundred dollars. How about it?”
At that, they all jumped in at once, eager to swap shoes.
Sara chose the pair of sneakers that fit her size, and the woman who ended up with the Versace heels and five hundred dollars looked beside herself with delight.
“How about it? Better now?”
“I think I could run in these.”
“Then let’s hurry.”
An evening dress with sneakers, and yet it suited her.
We headed toward Times Square at a brisk pace.
Fortunately, we arrived before midnight. Despite the cold weather, the square was packed to the brim with New Yorkers and tourists.
We were too far away to see the stage set up in the center, but the numbers on the giant screen were easy to read.
Soon, the New Year’s countdown began.
“Five, four, three, two, one!”
Fireworks shot into the sky, and nearly a ton of confetti rained down in a riot of color.
In that moment, everyone shouted as one.
“Happy New Year!”
Everyone welcomed the new year with joy.
I looked up at the fireworks bursting overhead and the confetti drifting down like snow.
Sara looked at me and said, “It’s the new year now.”
I held out my hand to her.
“I look forward to working with you again this year.”
Sara smiled and took my hand.
“Me too.”
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