Chapter 1

Investing Behind My Wife’s Back: Crypto Billionaire

A Single Moment of Courage

A single moment of courage, a single action—looking at myself was all it took to realize how dramatically they can change a person’s life.

That courageous choice could turn out to be the opportunity of a lifetime, or on the flip side, it could become the worst mistake ever made.

Which outcome was mine?

As for me, Kang Dong-joo, I was never a particularly courageous person.

Courage, as they say, is something you have to be born with.

Timid from a young age, I hesitated and backed down no matter what I did. When giving presentations, my voice wouldn’t come out; when kicking a ball on the playground, I was the kind of person who squeezed their eyes shut out of fear whenever the ball flew my way.

To put it in perspective, I never got into a single fight during my school days, but only because I avoided them all. Accompanied by the cowardly self-justification: “I’m not avoiding the pile of dirt because I’m scared; I’m avoiding it because it’s dirty.”

Even as I grew older, not much changed.

There were brief moments when I was captivated by things like “no-look alpha males” or “alpha males” on Youtube and felt a surge of desire, but I was still terrified of being in the spotlight and couldn’t express my emotions properly. It only seemed like I had improved slightly as time passed and my feelings dulled, but fundamentally, my courage hadn’t increased at all.

Perhaps that was the first time I ever truly showed courage.

It was back when job prospects were grim and my confidence was rock bottom. I was preparing for an interview at a cafe while sipping an iced Americano.

“…Excuse me, you’re exactly my type. Could you give me your number?”

I asked for the phone number of a cafe part-timer who possessed startlingly gorgeous looks.

My lips trembled, my voice shrank to a crawl, and I broke out in a cold sweat under the stinging gazes pouring in from all around.

Ah, what is wrong with my voice? I must look like a total loser.

Would she feel uncomfortable thinking my approach was harassment?

Or will I never be able to step foot in this cafe again?

Even in that moment, I was trembling in fear, consumed by pitifully weak thoughts.

Even looking back now, I have no idea how I gathered such courage. Perhaps the reproductive urge buried deep in my genes recognized it as a matter of survival and squeezed every drop of courage out of me.

The result?

Jeong Da-yeon. The woman who was once a cafe part-timer had now become my wife.

And one day, I asked her:

“Why did you date me?”

“Because you were cute.”

To be honest, that wasn’t the answer I was hoping for.

I wanted to be a real, tough man rather than a cute one.

I could proudly say that I had lived my entire life honestly, without a single instance of straying off course.

I had never hurled harsh insults at anyone, littered on the street, or even jaywalked.

Was it because of this side of me? People around me said I was kind, but in reality, rather than being kind, I was just a coward who lacked courage.

“You lucky bastard… I’m so jealous.”

A guy like me turned into a “thief” in an instant. That was what my friends started saying after I began dating my girlfriend.

Seeing Da-yeon’s appearance, every single one of my friends showed disbelief and utter astonishment.

Large, deep, Western-style eyes. And a small, round, adorable face shape. She was a beauty whose delicate features filled her tiny face.

When I told them such a beauty was my girlfriend, my friends treated me like a fraud and a thief, asking if I had hired a rental girlfriend or something.

What was even more surprising was that she was a former idol.

An unknown idol who had never once appeared on public broadcast music shows. She made her debut under a small-to-medium agency, but the company went completely belly-up, causing her to vanish without a trace. There was a tearful backstory where the CEO was caught fleeing in the night and landed in jail.

In the end, all she gained from her five years as a trainee and singer was debt. She was practically kicked out without receiving a single penny in settlement.

And what she started next was working part-time at a coffee shop. That was where she met me.

Now, she was the mother of our child and my lovely companion.

And behind her beautiful, glamorous appearance lay an unexpected twist.

“Honey, did you turn on the air conditioner without telling me? You could just turn on the fan. Why turn on the AC already?”

“Did you drink coffee at Starbeans today? I told you to apply the telecom discount coupon, so why did you buy it at full price? You could have saved a whole thousand won!”

“Oppa, are you using two pumps of shampoo right now? Even with my long hair I only use one pump—aren’t you wasting way too much for your hair length?”

She was a woman who managed the household meticulously and lived frugally.

Keeping a household account book daily was second nature to her, and she made every effort to save even ten won. She was astonishingly quick to catch wind of discounts or coupons, never bought anything at full price, and during our married life, the times we ate out or ordered delivery could be counted on one hand.

At times, her frugality crossed the line into feeling downright stingy.

It could have turned into an obsession if taken too far, but I understood my wife’s behavior to some extent.

Because our income was far from generous for a family of three to live on. My salary was only around 3 million won a month, and my wife occasionally worked part-time jobs just to contribute a small amount.

Kid’s kindergarten fees, insurance premiums, utility bills, food costs, family occasion expenses, and so on…

No matter how much we pinched pennies, expenses still ran to about 2 million won a month, and saving up to buy a house still felt like a distant, far-off dream.

Whenever I watched my wife briefing me on the household ledger, I thought to myself:

‘I am a father. I will protect my family.‘

To commute to work, I had to ride the subway for about an hour every day.

Going all the way from Nowon to Doksan Station offered a firsthand experience of a human bean sprout tub. It felt like being loaded onto a 21st-century slave ship, so to speak.

Looking at the cars outside the window every now and then, I couldn’t help but feel envious.

I used to own a car once too, but it had been a year since I switched from my own vehicle to public transportation. Calculating gas costs, automobile taxes, insurance premiums, and vehicle depreciation led me to the conclusion that a car was a money-devouring hippopotamus.

Of course, it was more my wife’s opinion than my own.

When I asked back, ‘Don’t we need at least one family car when we go out somewhere or take a trip with the family?‘, my wife adamantly opposed it, saying she would rather take a taxi with that money. She even pulled up price comparisons to show me, so I couldn’t break her argument.

Right. Once I earn a lot of money and get comfortable later on, I’ll buy one then.

Not knowing when that would be, but hoping that good days would come, I stepped into the company again today.

Yuseong Bio.

Just as the name suggested, it was a biotech company, and here I was in charge of finance.

Given the nature of the work, I frequently handled large sums of money, but being an office worker, my salary wasn’t high. To me, the money visible in front of my eyes during work was merely numbers.

“Good morning, General Manager.”

While going up in the elevator, I happened to run into General Manager Kim Hyun-shik from the Development Team.

His body was so skinny that one couldn’t help but suspect if he had parasites in his stomach. I bowed my waist to greet him, but he merely cast a glance my way without even answering.

In truth, I was on Manager Kim’s bad side.

During the year-end settlement last year, while preparing the financial statements, I noticed an error on a receipt and corrected it. It just so happened that the receipt was for money Manager Kim had spent personally, and he had tried to play tricks using a temporary receipt.

I had prevented what could have turned into embezzlement later on since it was processed as a temporary payment, but Manager Kim lost his temper and flew into a rage instead. He scolded me, spouting words about how I should work flexibly and with adaptability.

Ever since, I was marked by Manager Kim and had to work every day feeling like I was sitting on a bed of nails.

What should I do?

Should I go and kneel down before him?

Or play the flatterer by acting cute and brown-nosing?

Neither was my style.

No, in the first place, there was no reason for me to go that far.

I had simply done the job given to me.

Although a resignation letter flickered before my eyes, thinking about my wife and daughter at home meant I couldn’t afford to do that.

Fortunately, there was a friend at this company who would listen to my grievances.

A friend who joined around the same time as me and worked in the HR team; as luck would have it, we were college alumni.

Jang Seong-jun. He spoke to me as I sat with my shoulders slumped.

“Dong-joo. Want to grab a drink after work?”

“Why a drink all of a sudden?”

“Looking at your face, it seems like you need an alcohol recharge. I can tell at a single glance.”

“What’s wrong with my face?”

I asked, touching my face.

“A face that’s sad from getting chewed out by Manager Kim, perhaps?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I saw it earlier. At the elevator.”

“So you saw it. Whew… Let’s drink next time.”

“Hey, why are you backing out? Is it because of your wife?”

“No, it’s nothing like that.”

“Nothing my foot. What do you mean ‘no’? Are you still living under your wife’s thumb? What a pitiful soul.”

He was a friend with sharp instincts. Having known me for a long time, he saw right through me.

“Fine. Let’s just have a quick meal and a drink or two then.”

“Will you be okay? Won’t you get scolded by your wife?”

“I’m the head of the household, why would I get scolded? A man can have a drink when working, can’t he?”

It was a man’s petty pride.

To be honest, I was a bit terrified.

Because if I went home smelling of alcohol, my wife’s fiery wrath would inevitably come down on me.

It wasn’t that my wife disliked drinking. She just extremely hated spending money on foolish things. She disliked the act of spending money and health just to get drunk for a temporary mood.

As promised, after work, I went to a restaurant with Seong-jun.

It was a raw fish restaurant.

The conversations over drinks were always similar.

Kids, wives, company talk, and memories from college days.

Most of the topics revolved in circles, but with a bit of drunkenness added, even that was enjoyable.

It was right around the time when talk of key-money rental leases naturally transitioned to Seoul housing prices and then to wealth management.

“Oh right. Want to take a look at the crypto investment I’m doing these days?”

Seong-jun slid his smartphone forward, showing me a crypto app.

“I bought Bitcoin last year when it was 8 million won. Look at it now. It’s already doubled.”

It was 2020, right when Bitcoin was surging.

Having dropped to a low of 3 million won last year, it was now at 16 million won. Seong-jun had invested a large sum of 30 million won and was currently sitting on a 100% return.

“Wow, crazy. How can a digital scrap be worth ten million won?”

“You don’t know anything. Bitcoin is going to reach 100 million won in the future.”

“100 million won? Isn’t that dreaming too big? What if it plummets? Crypto can crash overnight, you know.”

“Investing is done with the heart. To make big money, you need the courage to take on that much risk.”

Seong-jun beat his chest, acting puff-chested.

That was something a chicken-hearted person like me could never do.

Occasionally, I would watch videos on Youtube about people whose lives were ruined by crypto investments, and just thinking about that being me made my knees tremble.

“Man, I’m jealous. You made a whole year’s salary.”

“If you’re jealous, do it too. From where I stand, it’s not too late even now.”

“I don’t think I could do it because of anxiety. Plus, I can’t because of my wife. She trembles even over a hundred won—imagine if I lost money in crypto. She’d try to kill me.”

Investing in crypto was an unimaginable act.

What if I actually lost money?

Just imagining what kind of expression my wife would make terrified me.

Regrettably, since we had to go to work tomorrow, we wrapped it up with one bottle of soju each.

And when Seong-jun offered to pay, I firmly refused and handed over my card instead.

It was because Seong-jun had treated me during our last drinking session. No matter what, my conscience wouldn’t allow me to get treated twice in a row.

Living as a married man wasn’t as easy as one might think.

Sometimes, you had to know how to put on a masterclass performance.

“Oppa, did you drink?”

“Huh? No. Just, well… I had about one glass. You know Seong-jun, right? That friend kept insisting on having a drink, so I had no choice but to go. I just had a light meal and came back.”

I thought I had put on a pretty remarkable performance, but my wife’s sharp instincts couldn’t be fooled.

Above all, the fatal mistake was that card transaction notifications were sent directly to my wife’s phone.

“70,000 won at a raw fish restaurant… Looks like you ate something delicious?”

It was a sarcastic tone.

I had to explain quickly right here.

“Just some flounder and rockfish. And a bottle of Fresh Dew?”

“Oppa, you know a lot of money went out for family occasions this month, right? But what are you doing right now? Do you think I don’t like raw fish or eating out? I’m holding back too. When every single penny counts right now, does it make sense to spend 70,000 won on a single meal?”

In the end, my wife exploded.

She fired off like a machine gun, making me feel like my eardrums were going to burst.

“I’m sorry. I must have lost my mind for a moment.”

“No, forget it.”

My wife snapped her head away with a pouting face.

Sigh. She was genuinely upset.

This belonged to the stage of ‘Extreme Anger’—one step right before ‘Unbridled Rage’.

Judging by the scale, it looked like this would last for about a week.

I scratched the back of my head and let out a deep sigh.

At that moment, a thought suddenly crossed my mind:

‘Can’t I just go and earn that damn money?‘

Of course, I couldn’t utter those words out loud.

If I upset my wife’s mood any further here, I might have to face an unbearable end.

Nor did I have any confidence that I could earn more money than now in the future.

No. Perhaps, I simply lacked courage.