The sign on the door read: Investor Relations (IR) Department. Inside, twenty employees sat nervously at their desks. For decades, their job was to massage the truth for analysts, write glossy annual reports, and apologize to shareholders when earnings missed targets.
Kang Min-jun stood at the front of the room. He didn't bring a PowerPoint. He brought a single box.
"Pack your things," Min-jun said softly.
The Team Leader stood up, trembling. "Chairman... I mean, Owner Kang. We are preparing the Q3 earnings call script. The analysts are expecting..."
"There are no analysts," Min-jun cut him off. "There are no earnings calls. There is no stock ticker."
He looked around the room.
"This company is delisted. It is private property. I don't need to explain my profits to Goldman Sachs. I don't need to apologize to the National Pension Service. Therefore, I don't need an Investor Relations department."
"But... who will handle the press?"
"We don't talk to the press," Min-jun said. "We build bridges. We build apartments. We make money. Silence is our new strategy."
He pointed to the door. "You are all transferred to the Procurement or Sales divisions. Learn how to buy concrete or sell condos. The era of selling 'stories' is over."
As the staff shuffled out, shocked but relieved they weren't fired, Jin Seo-yoon walked in. She looked at the empty desks.
"You're turning the lights off," she observed.
"I'm turning the noise off," Min-jun corrected. "Public companies are obsessed with quarterly results. They cut corners to hit a number. Now? We can think in decades."
He walked to the window. "How is the Hannam-dong project?"
"On schedule. But raw material costs are spiking. Steel is up 40%. Cement is up 20%. Inflation is real, Min-jun. If we were a public company, our stock would be crashing on margin squeeze fears."
"But we aren't public," Min-jun smiled. "So we eat the cost. We don't cut quality. We build the best damn apartment in Seoul. Because when the inflation bubble bursts, quality is the only asset that holds value."
October 20, 2021. Mirue Partners. The War Room.
The screens were blindingly green. Bitcoin: $66,000 (New All-Time High). Ethereum: $4,000. Terra (LUNA): $45.00.
Everyone was a genius. Every taxi driver was a crypto trader. But Min-jun was looking at a different screen. A complex simulation running on a server rack in the corner.
Park Dong-hoon, the genius engineer from Toss, was typing furiously. He had grown out his hair and looked even more like a mad scientist than before.
"It's a perpetual motion machine," Dong-hoon muttered, pointing at the flow chart. "Look at the mechanics of Anchor Protocol."
Min-jun stepped closer. Anchor Protocol: The savings bank of the Terra ecosystem. It promised a fixed 20% APY on TerraUSD (UST) deposits.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
"Where does the yield come from?" Min-jun asked, knowing the answer.
"It comes from borrowers paying interest on bonded assets (bLuna)," Dong-hoon explained. "But right now, there aren't enough borrowers. The protocol is bleeding money to pay the depositors. They are subsidizing the yield from their own reserve fund."
"It's a marketing budget disguised as a bank," Min-jun nodded. "They are paying 20% to attract users. As long as users enter, LUNA burns, price goes up. It works."
"But look here," Dong-hoon highlighted a red line on the simulation. The Exit Gate.
"The market cap of UST (the stablecoin) is $15 Billion. But the liquidity in the Curve Pool (the exit door) is only $500 Million. If a whale tries to sell $1 Billion of UST... the peg breaks."
"And if the peg breaks?"
"The algorithm tries to fix it by minting infinite LUNA. Hyperinflation. LUNA goes to zero. UST goes to zero. It's a Death Spiral."
Min-jun stared at the simulation. It was the same flaw as the Soros trade against the British Pound in 1992. Or the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997. You cannot peg a currency without infinite reserves. And Do Kwon's reserves were Bitcoin, which was volatile.
"How much capital do we need to break the peg?" Min-jun asked.
Dong-hoon ran the numbers. "To trigger a cascade? About $300 Million (350 Billion KRW) of selling pressure in a single 4-hour window. If you dump that much UST, the arbitrage bots won't be able to keep up. Panic sets in."
"350 Billion," Min-jun calculated. He had the money. He had 400 Billion in liquid cash sitting in the bank from the Daegwang Construction privatization leftovers and his previous crypto exits.
"But we can't just short it," Min-jun said. "If we short LUNA on Binance, Do Kwon sees the position. He can squeeze us."
"We need to be invisible," Dong-hoon agreed. "We need to attack the peg, not the token."
Min-jun opened his notebook. He wrote down the plan. Operation: Icarus.
-
Accumulate UST: Slowly buy $300 Million worth of UST over 4 months. Look like a believer. Deposit it into Anchor to earn the 20% yield.
-
The Hedge: Open short positions on Bitcoin and LUNA using offshore accounts.
-
The Trigger: When the market weakens (likely when the Fed raises rates in 2022), withdraw the $300 Million from Anchor all at once and dump it on the Curve pool.
"It's financial assassination," Dong-hoon whispered. "If this works, you wipe out $40 Billion of wealth. People will lose their life savings."
"They are already losing it," Min-jun said grimly. "They just don't know it yet. They are putting their money in a furnace because a charismatic liar told them it was a bank. I'm just the one who turns off the gas."
Min-jun looked at the chart of LUNA. It was climbing vertically. Do Kwon was tweeting about being the "Master of Stablecoins."
"Hyuk-jae is buying LUNA," Min-jun said suddenly.
"What?"
"I saw the wallet tracking. Daegwang Hotels is converting their cash reserves into UST to earn the 20% yield. They think it's risk-free income to pay their rent."
Min-jun smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. "He's putting his neck in the noose again. This time, I won't just tighten it. I'll kick the chair."
November 1, 2021. Hannam-dong. The Construction Site.
Min-jun stood on the unfinished balcony of what would be the Penthouse. He wore a hard hat. Below him, Seoul stretched out, grey and sprawling.
Grandpa Byung-ho stood beside him, clutching his coat against the wind. "Is this it?" Byung-ho asked. "The top?"
"This is the view from the top," Min-jun said. "We own the company building this. We own the logistics network delivering to it. We own the bank app paying for it."
"I mean the market," Byung-ho clarified. "Bitcoin is $60,000. People are crazy. My barber told me to buy a picture of a monkey."
"Yes," Min-jun looked at the grey sky. "This is the top. Inflation is 6%. The Fed is admitting they were wrong. They will raise rates next year. The liquidity party is over."
"So we hide?"
"No. We hunt."
Min-jun checked his phone. Mirue Partners Account: Transfer Initiated: 100 Billion KRW -> Binance (UST Purchase).
Phase 1 of Operation Icarus had begun. He was buying the ammo to kill the unicorn.
"Grandpa," Min-jun said. "Do you trust me?"
"I trusted you when you were a high schooler with 10 million won. Now you have a trillion. Why ask?"
"Because this next trade... it's not about making money. It's about teaching the world a lesson. It's going to be ugly."
"The world is ugly, Min-jun. Just make sure we are the ones holding the umbrella when it rains."
Min-jun nodded. The rain was coming. A storm of deleveraging that would wash away the scams, the jpegs, and the arrogant heirs.
[TRANSACTION LOG]
-
Date: Oct 2021
-
Corporate Action:
-
Daegwang Construction: Restructuring Complete. IR/PR Depts dissolved.
-
Strategy: "Black Box" Mode. Focusing on cash accumulation and project execution.
-