After the Divorce, I Could Hear the Voice of the Future
Chapter 434 - 431: Runaway Bitcoin

"Mr. Lu, I spoke with Mr. Xiong from IDG this afternoon, and we have their support."

Cheng Wei, having breathed a sigh of relief, informed [them] of the current progress. Apart from Softbank still pending a stance, most institutions were already on their camp, supporting the introduction of Lu Liang to assist DiDi's IPO.

The top five shareholders of DiDi were respectively Softbank at 17.8%, Uber at 10.23%, Tencent at 7.55%, Goldman Sachs at 5.23%, and IDG at 4.22%.

Next came Golden Sand River and Redwood.

Softbank and IDG were just neutral parties interested in making money; Uber and Goldman Sachs were backing Liu Qing, and Tencent supported him.

Now that IDG Capital had also taken a position by inviting Lu Liang to join, there was a high likelihood of success.

"It's all about giving it a try. If it were me, I, too, would support," he commented.

Lu Liang smiled slightly, pondered for a moment, and knew exactly what those institutions were thinking.

It was merely a matter of a 2% dilution of their shares, which was trivial to them.

As for the 15% voting rights, apart from Goldman Sachs, Softbank, and Uber, Tencent and IDG wouldn't care.

Anyway, if they could go public, that would be best, but if not, they could also buy back the shares, so no loss for them.

"Mr. Lu, how are things on your end?" Cheng Wei asked cautiously.

As Lu Liang had said, inviting him to join and give it a try was a no-lose situation; the key was whether he could help DiDi go public.

"It's almost ready; we've done our humanly best, now we leave it up to fate," Lu Liang sighed; he was not particularly sure himself.

The listing rules on Nasdaq included a clause that demanded all corporate data be provided for review by US regulatory bodies from enterprises seeking to list within the United States.

These reviews could be lenient or strict.

Lenient like Panda, casually submitting some irrelevant user data, which easily passed the review by the United States.

Strict like DiDi's previous submission for review, which was almost unreservedly planned to include extremely sensitive data such as domestic user and location mapping data in the submission to the US review agencies.

That was also the reason for rejecting DiDi's IPO application in the US, yet no further action was taken.

It was unclear whether Liu Qing did this deliberately or really adhered so strictly to US legal provisions; DiDi followed the strictest standards, and the Ministry of Commerce, aside from rejecting the application, had little else to say.

Lu Liang was unsure whether Liu Qing had an ulterior motive or was just trying to please the United States.

If it was the former, nobody would be effective,

If it was the latter, there was still room for maneuver.

Cheng Wei was silent for a long time before slowly saying, "Mr. Lu, I entrust everything to you."

He knew very well the extent of the Liu family's influence and could guess the reason for DiDi's IPO difficulties.

But now, apart from standing beside Lu Liang and fervently cheering, he could not help in any other way.

Not long after, he ended the call with Cheng Wei, and Lu Liang got into a car planning to head home.

Suddenly, Wen Chao from Tokyo made a call.

His tone hardly concealed his excitement, "Mr. Lu, are you currently following Bitcoin's market?"

"What's up?"

Lu Liang, puzzled, patted Fang Shiyu's shoulder, asking him to pull over to the side of the road. Watching the market in the car could cause dizziness.

Wen Chao hurriedly said, "Just moments ago, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange announced that on October 5th, Bitcoin will be launched in the form of a futures contract."

Previously, cryptocurrency had not been recognized by the mainstream market, existing in forms akin to private underground markets in Southeast Asia.

But now it was different; the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, established in 1848, is the world's largest futures and options exchange.

Initially, the commodities included perishable agricultural products such as soybeans, butter, and eggs.

After over a century of development, it introduced many non-agricultural products, such as gold and silver.

Today, the average seven-day trading volume has already exceeded five hundred billion dollars.

For Bitcoin, this was unquestionably gigantic good news, just like Panda's listing on Nasdaq.

Listening to Wen Chao's narrative, Lu Liang also took a tablet from Xu Jiawei and saw today's market.

A huge bullish candlestick shot up to the sky, with today's surge at 78.5%, current price at 2766.75 dollars.

Lu Liang asked calmly, "How much liquid capital do we still have, what's the cost price, and how much do we own?"

Wen Chao answered, "We still have four hundred and twenty-five million dollars available, average price is 1693 dollars, holding three hundred and thirty-nine thousand coins."

Lu Liang immediately ordered, "Reserve fifty million dollars of capital. With the market's current burst of activity, buy it all without consideration for cost or market impact."

Almost 340,000 Bitcoins, if sold at the current price without affecting the market conditions, would yield about 940 million US dollars.

In less than a month, a pure profit of 365 million US dollars was earned, with an average daily profit of over ten million US dollars.

If Lu Liang hadn't known what was coming next in the market, he might have sold them already, but he knew it hadn't peaked yet.

20,852 US dollars, that was the limit of this wave of market conditions. There was still a potential gain of over 650% to be made.

This project might become the highest investment return of Lu Liang's life, possibly without equal.

Since the total issuance was only 21 million coins, and they held 340,000, they already owned more than 1%. With further investment, they were likely to reach 2%.

Cryptocurrency is a brand-new financial derivative that hadn't appeared before. If it was developed further, they could be considered as pioneers.

Just like BlackRock, which spun off from the financial sector of the Blackstone Group in '88 and delved into US stocks during their nascent phase.

Over the years, as US stocks developed, it grew into a behemoth.

Although supported by the Jewish consortium, there was a cause-and-effect relationship. It had the potential for development, which earned the support, not the other way around.

In this day and age, there were numerous unsuccessful failures.

"Alright, Mr. Lu."

It was after eight at night. Lu Liang didn't head home but kept his vehicle parked by the roadside, maintaining a call with Wen Chao.

Through the earpiece came Wen Chao's frustrated voice. The market, which was just stabilizing from positive news, erupted once again.

375 million US dollars crashed into the market, almost in the blink of an eye. The daily gain jumped from 78.5% to 92%, pushing the price close to 3000 US dollars.

As a large volume of buy orders swept the market, the 3000 US dollar barrier was as fragile as paper.

The market was grossly inflated, although it had gained mainstream acceptance, it hadn't fully entered it yet.

Previously, the daily trading volume was only one or two hundred million US dollars, though it had broken through the one billion dollar mark today for the first time after the announcement by the Chicago Exchange.

But they held 375 million US dollars, a sum that could increase the daily trading volume by another 30%.

By ten o'clock that night, Bitcoin's daily gain had surpassed 105%, nearing its all-time high of 3182 US dollars.

In mid-August, a sudden 45% overnight drop wide-released numerous locked-in trading positions, causing another surge in trading volume.

At the same time, on a forum in Korea, someone suddenly started boasting about their earnings from playing with coins that day.

A screenshot showed a profit of 612% for the day, from a mere investment of 20,000 US dollars to 125,800 US dollars in one day.

Financial products typically allow for leverage, applications like FXCM come with up to ten times leverage.

If actively applied for, one could even get up to 125 times leverage. The person who made the post seemed to have used no less than five times leverage.

Which is why with a market gain of only 105%, they had achieved more than 600% profit.

As soon as the post was shared, it immediately sparked a fierce discussion among numerous netizens.

Seventy percent of the retail investors in the international market were from East Asia. East Country accounted for fifty percent, Korea thirty percent, and Neon twenty percent.

East Country, thanks to its vast population, was far ahead. Neon's population wasn't small either, and Korea had the highest proportion.

Perhaps due to the country's small size and lack of resources, and conglomerate monopolies, one couldn't get ahead without taking risks.

According to a survey by Korean media, at least six out of ten young people had participated in financial investment.

A one-day surge of 105%, the existence of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin quickly caught the attention of this generation of Korean youth.

A large number of retail investors from Korea rushed in.

Almost midnight, Wen Chao had built up to 95% of the desired position, leaving only fifty million US dollars in reserve.

The cost price had inflated to 1931 US dollars per Bitcoin, holding a total of 487,000 coins.

"You should also head back and rest early. Leave it be; let the market adjust on its own."

Just as Lu Liang was about to go home, he suddenly noticed that Bitcoin had launched its third wave of the day.

Feeling perplexed, he asked, "What does the monitoring on your side show?"

Logically, after they had completely built their position, there wouldn't be further buying, and the market was expected to recede somewhat.

If panic spread, it was even normal for the price to fall below 3000 US dollars.

However, the market was bizarrely unpredictable. The price of 3215 US dollars was not low, and with today's gain surpassing 108%, it was still surging upwards.

Wen Chao was baffled. "Looking at the trades, it seems to be retail investors, mostly volumes of 0.1, 0.2. But can retail investors have such large volumes?"

Lu Liang's brow furrowed, worried that their buying had drawn unwanted attention. "Check it out, and send me a message later."