Smoke surrounded Choi Gichul as he inhaled a cigarette outside the office. He tried to calm down, but his hands continued to tremble.
“Dammit… Dammit! I should have sold earlier. Even if I sold when it was at 5000 dollars… I would have been safe.”
He regretted his decision, but it was too late. Choi Gichul took out his cellphone and logged on to his Bit Trading account.
1BTC 31.60.
1BTC 30.40.
1BTC 29.90.
The price continued to drop. It was believed that Kang Woosung’s recent announcement was the reason. However, Choi Gichul couldn’t understand.
“Why do people think that bastard is so great? Why does everyone listen to him?”
He tried to think of an answer, but there was none. He got angrier and angrier. He threw away his cigarette to the ground.
“I will make up for it by the end of the day. There is still a chance. The price dropped quickly, which means it can go up just as quickly too.”
***
After his speech, Woosung returned to his hotel room and turned on his laptop.
“Time to drop it to a dollar. I will make sure it can never recover again.”
Woosung remote controlled into his home computer and adjusted the program parameters. He put the numbers 90 and 70 cents. The system started to activate Woosung’s servers all over the world. His bitcoins were quickly sold and the price started to drop.
Woosung imagined what Choi Gichul would look like when he realized what was happening. He couldn’t help but laugh. Choi Gichul would lose all his money.
“Haha, I can’t wait. I will send you to jail. Jung Jinsup too.”
1BTC 25.50.
1BTC 28.10.
1BTC 16.10
1BTC 20.10.
Woosung turned off his computer and left the room. A luncheon was prepared for him and other officials from the world’s major financial institutions.
***
When Choi Gichul returned to the office and checked his computer, he was in shock again. Before he went for a smoke, it was 31.60, but now, it was even lower. Within 20 minutes, the price dropped to five dollars.
As he watched, the price went down again to three dollars.
“T… three dollars.”
His account, at one point, boasted of two billion dollars, but now it had only 7.3 million dollars. Choi Gichul had one last chance. He moved all his coins from BitMain account and foreign wallets into his Bit Trading account.
If he put all his money one last time, he could pump the price.
Late night in the office.
Jung Jinsup placed a notice online.
Title: Server check due to a sudden increase in transactions.
Main: Hello. We will be carrying out emergency maintenance of our system due to the sudden increase in bitcoin trading. All transactions will pause briefly. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
As soon as this notice came up, different online coin forums became filled with negative comments.
“Bit Trading is going to pump the bitcoin price again. I call 500% this time.”
“What a bad management team. I suspect that they are trying to recover from the recent loss.”
“This is our chance too! Go to Bit Trading now and buy buy buy! The price will rise!”
People remembered what happened last time. Bitcoin’s price went up sharply at Bit Trading after the halt.
Jung Jinsup checked the numbers and said to Choi Gichul, “A lot of money is coming in right now into our system. Ten times more than usual. This way, we should be able to jump the price ten-fold.”
“That’s not enough. It has to be at least a hundred-fold.”
That would give them a 10,000% profit.
Jung Jinsup swallowed. He hasn’t been investing since he lost everything, but this was his chance. Woosung warned him not to get involved. He said he won’t pay his debt back for him if Jung Jinsup gambled in bitcoin again.
However, this was such a good chance.
‘Oh well, he will never find out. I need to make some money for myself. It’s a rigged game and I can’t let it pass.’
Jung Jinsup placed 500,000 dollars of his money into the system.
“It’s done.”
As soon as Jung Jinsup gave him a go, Choi Gichul made a call quickly. He had a group of experts ready this time. After the call, the chart started to move.
Choi Gichul waited for the price to jump.
“Huh?”
Jung Jinsup asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Wait a minute.”
Choi Gichul picked up his phone again.
***
Woosung grinned as he watched his monitor.
“Ha! He was going to fix the price with only a few millions of dollars?”
Woosung had previously moved his bitcoins to Bit Trading account. Woosung started to sell them off quickly.
“I have over a million bitcoins here.”
Choi Gichul’s team tried to increase the price, but Woosung stunted their attempts every time.
After 12 hours, the price could not even reach 1000 dollars.