Formula 1: The GOAT

“We have already finished forming relationships with all major bitcoin OTCs (Over-the-Counter desks), and they were quite eager to do business with us once they saw our available volume, along with all the documents showing that it was clean and accounted for.”

“So you mean to say there is enough demand that our volume doesn’t pose any risk of crashing the market?”

“Yes. In fact, they see it as a way to push the price even higher. Once people see that such a large amount is being purchased, it will reassure them that even those with a lot of money believe it’s going to go higher than the price they bought at, since that’s the only way for those who bought high to profit.”

“Did they try to negotiate our sell price conditions?”

“No, they agreed without trying to advise us to lower it. We have successfully made ourselves the first option once the prices reach our sell target.”

“But are you sure you don’t want to set a higher sell price?”

“Why?”

“Because it seems like you believe that it will go higher than the sell price you have set, so I have been wondering why not make it higher?”

“Because if we manage to sell at that price, it will be a huge profit in itself, considering the price we got the bitcoins at. There is no need to get greedier than we already are. Plus, if that happens, we can just sell more, so keep the sell price the same.”

“Okay, I will keep monitoring it and inform you about any developments on the price side. I will do the same once the sale goes ahead.”

“Okay, talk to you later.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Rümeysa finally ended the call with the manager of digital assets, whom she had hired a few weeks ago, to start the process of forming relationships with the OTC desks in preparation for their large sale.

It was quite difficult to find someone who fit all of her criteria, as cryptocurrency was only a few years old, meaning there was a very small number of people with knowledge of both finance and cryptocurrency.

This led to her hiring a slightly experienced individual with only a year of experience in finance, which she saw as the best possible option, as his knowledge of crypto was the best among anyone presented to her.

After all, she didn’t need deep finance expertise if all she currently needed him to do was prepare the sale. If things went well, she was planning on hiring more people with experience in different areas to form a family office to handle the money, and when that happened, the digital assets manager would have experienced people to learn from.

As December was only a few days away and Bitcoin had already exceeded $8,500, she was both excited and nervous. The price target seemed a tad unrealistic, as it meant Fatih expected the price to more than double in a period of just a week and go even further in order to make the $15k and $16k target sell prices possible.

Her worry was that Fatih might be greedy in trying to get a higher-than-realistic price and, as a result, might end up not being able to actualize the profits if the market crashed or didn’t even reach the target.

But despite that, she was still not planning on changing the sell price. She knew that although they might lose possible profits if they couldn’t sell at the planned prices and the market crashed, they could still make an unbelievable amount of money if they sold even after a crash, since Fatih had accumulated all of the bitcoin for less than ten thousand dollars.

At the same time, she couldn’t help but ask herself what if it actually went through, and the forty thousand bitcoins that were now divided across more than five OTC traders all got bought. That would net them more than half a billion in cash in one go. But despite her imagination going wild, she still managed to restrain herself and prevent herself from thinking about the possible future until the current situation passed.

But it was impossible to fully stop thinking about it, so her mind kept coming back to it, and the worry about a crash came along with it. It had now become her routine to check the bitcoin prices daily.

Nov 26, 2017: $9,330.55

Nov 27, 2017: $9,818.35

On November 28, 2017, the price finally passed the ten-thousand-dollar threshold, closing at $10,058.80, making her heart shake from both excitement and worry. Her worries intensified as she imagined the worst when the price went down to $9,888.61 the next day, as she was worried it had already reached its peak and had now entered free fall.

Thankfully, the rebound back to $10,233.60 on November 30 calmed her worried heart a bit. The upward trend continued:

Dec 1, 2017: $10,975.60

Dec 2, 2017: $11,074.60

Dec 3, 2017: $11,323.20

Dec 4, 2017: $11,657.20

Dec 5, 2017: $11,916.70

As she looked at the closing price on the fifth of December, she hopefully slept imagining that the price the next day would only increase by a few hundred dollars. But as if to mess with her heart, the market the next day jumped to $14,291.50 when it closed.

The trade volume that day doubled from the previous week’s average of six billion dollars a day to twelve billion. As if fuel was finally injected into the already volatile environment, the trade volume exceeded seventeen billion dollars the following day as bitcoin prices closed at $17,899.70 per bitcoin.

This meant the first batch of their sales went through immediately, as ten thousand bitcoins were sold at both $15k and $16k across five OTC desks, sending Rümeysa’s excitement through the roof while at the same time giving her a moment of relief after the pressure continued to build for the entire week.

Although the daily volume exceeded twenty-one billion, the price lost some momentum as it went down to $16,569.40. But to Rümeysa, the fall did little to curb her enthusiasm as the second round of trades went through, and another ten thousand bitcoins were sold.

The fall continued into the next day as bitcoin dropped to $15,178.20, which resulted in a drop in the sales of their remaining bitcoins, but that worry was immediately thwarted when it returned to rising, reaching $15,455.40.

The rise continued for the next few days:

Dec 11, 2017: $16,936.80

Dec 12, 2017: $17,415.40

Dec 13, 2017: $16,408.20

Dec 14, 2017: $16,564.00

Dec 15, 2017: $17,706.90

Before Bitcoin finally broke the nineteen-thousand-dollar barrier, it closed at $19,497.40. When that happened, the rest of the remaining fifteen thousand bitcoins went through in a single day, as they finally finished selling all forty thousand.

Worried about the large volume sell impacting the market, while also worried about the fear of missing out, she continued monitoring the price. The next day, when it remained above nineteen thousand, she felt both relief and fear that they might have sold it for cheap.

……..

“WE SOLD ALL OF IT! WE SOLD ALL OF IT! WE SOLD ALL OF IT!” the digital assets manager, Edgar, shouted on the phone, exuberant that something that had caused him to lose sleep had finally borne fruit.

“Yes, yes, Edgar, good job on that,” Rümeysa answered, excited as well but measured in her response, though it was clear in her voice.

“We received calls from a few of the OTC desks asking if we can provide more volume as the market is heating up. I told them I will get back to them soon. What do you think? Do we have more?” Edgar reported.

For both operational security and because there was no need for it, she hadn’t provided access to all of the wallets Fatih had given her, having given Edgar only the required amount. She didn’t have a system in place to ensure full security of all the assets, trust wasn’t yet built, and the value of the remaining bitcoin wasn’t something that trust alone could warrant handing over.

“How much more do you think it is realistically possible to sell in the current market?”

“It depends on how high it can go, but they told me there is a trader who wants to buy ten thousand of them at eighteen thousand dollars if we can execute the trade by today. He has already proven the availability of money in an escrow account.”

“Then we should go through with it and end our selling with that. I will provide you with the ten thousand required for the trade,” Rümeysa said, deciding to sell ten thousand more, bringing the total of bitcoin sold during this period to fifty thousand.

“Then I will contact them and make the preparations,” Edgar said before ending the call.

Rümeysa immediately got to work. She transferred a total of ten thousand bitcoins from many of the wallets Fatih had given her to a single wallet, draining them completely so that they could not be used to trace their next transaction. She then gave the wallet information to Edgar, who went through with the final trade in a matter of hours before the amount was remitted into one of their bank accounts.

To keep things from spiraling, she had instructed Edgar to provide different bank accounts to each OTC desk in order to obscure their total position should they talk amongst one another. Fatih, having given her a few hundred wallets, allowed her to fully isolate each account, making it look as if just a few different whales were cashing out.

Now that she was finally finished with the selling, it was time for her to tally just how much money they had made within three weeks.