To Walker it seemed he had the perfect system, with one obvious flaw. It wasn’t scalable. Walker himself had to work, day in and day out. He had to input the “special trades” into his system, and he had to be here on those occasions when his “special clients” came to input their account information into the system.
It was this lack of scalability that was burning him out. He told himself that in a year’s time he would sell BlackHole to some other wealthy tech-minded cryptocurrency maverick. He’d make tens of millions more for the sale on top of what he was banking now, and he would then explain to the new owner about the special transactions he had been conducting in person. While the new owner weighed this information, Terry Walker would take his family home, and when he got home he would park his money in offshores and work in something else; he didn’t know what just yet, but one thing he told himself he would not do was deal with any more dangerous people. He had a wife and a son, and while he was providing for them in a way most people could never dream of, he was very aware they were, ultimately, in as much danger as he was.
This job was great for making money in the short term, but it was terrible as a long-term plan.
Terry told himself he’d keep at it for a while, but he’d pick and choose his clients now. He wanted no more dealings with dangerous individuals, so he planned to keep an eye out for business opportunities that seemed too good to be true.
Today Terry worked away the morning, and then into the afternoon, pausing for only a few minutes to exchange texts with his wife and a few minutes more to eat a rice-and-sausage dish brought in by one of his local employees.
At three p.m. his secretary came over the intercom in his office, even though she was sitting just a dozen feet away in the front room. “Mr. Walker? Mr. Ivanov and… and a colleague are here for you.”
Terry had forgotten about this afternoon’s meeting, but with the call he immediately brushed the last of the rice off his face and took a long swig of bottled water to do what he could to hide the garlic from his breath. He tightened his tie and headed for the little lobby of the office.
Most offices in this building belonged to local attorneys, and Terry doubted many of them had ever had a client visit them in person. That wasn’t what the BVIs and several other Caribbean offshore financial havens were all about. But Terry found himself face-to-face with one of his special clients or potential clients every week or so.
Walker shook hands with the two men and introduced himself.
One of the men spoke in a heavy Russian accent. “My name is Ivanov, and this is my associate, Mr. Popov.”
Walker knew that Popov and Ivanov were two of the most common surnames in Russia. Virtually a third of the mysterious Russians he’d ever had dealings with had called themselves Ivanov, and probably one in six had gone by Popov. Walker assumed they were not the men’s real names; the Ivanovs and Popovs he’d met in the past had not really been named that either, any more than a couple Americans introducing themselves as Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones would really be named that.
Walker found himself completely unfazed to learn he was probably being lied to. It went with the job.
When they sat down, Ivanov said, “I appreciate your time.”
“It’s my pleasure. Either of you care for a cup of tea?”
Ivanov shook his head, as did Popov, and they both sat down in simple chairs across from Walker. Ivanov said, “I represent a client who wants to convert a large amount of his assets, an extremely large amount, into cryptocurrency. He then would like the currency traded on BlackHole for U.S. dollars and he would like me to enter his new account numbers for disbursal of the funds.”
Walker stifled a yawn and told himself he should have had a second Red Bull after lunch. He said, “Mr. Frieden contacted me yesterday and said you’d be coming right over. I don’t normally work this quickly, but he assured me this would be something I wouldn’t want to pass up.”
“I should think not,” Ivanov said.
Walker just nodded. He reached for a pen. “How much?” He knew better than to ask who the client was.
“There will be future transactions. But for now, let’s say eight billion.”
With wide eyes Walker reached for his calculator. “Good Lord. That is… that is a lot of money, indeed. I’ll just need to check the exchange rate and convert that from rubles to U.S. to get an idea of—”
Ivanov said, “Eight billion U.S. dollars.”
Walker stared at Ivanov, then put his pen down with a little sigh. “Eight billion dollars. Is this a fucking joke, mate? Because I’ve no time for jokes.”
“No joke.”
“Mr. Ivanov, the entire market capitalization of Bitcoin is barely six billion dollars.”
“I understand that. That’s why this must be done piecemeal, but it still must be done quickly. You could transfer two hundred sixty-six million dollars a day into the market, in which case you would have the transfers completed in thirty days. This is five percent of the market capitalization.”
“That’s ridiculous! All the activity on BlackHole combined is less than five hundred million a day.”
“So our transactions would be less than three-fifths your normal daily trades.” Ivanov added, “People watching the cryptomarkets will immediately recognize there are new big players involved, it will push the value of the currency up, and it will increase the total market value, and the total trading volume. That happens, and we will increase our daily transactions. Our thirty-day plan will become a twenty-day plan, or even a fifteen-day plan. It all depends on how others in the markets react.”
Walker sighed again. “You aren’t thinking this through, mate. As this money is introduced into the markets so quickly, so dramatically, the increase of the price of one Bitcoin will be dramatic. Others in the market will react by freaking out.”
Andrei Limonov had taken his cover identity from his father’s name, Ivan — he went by Ivanov. He had no idea why Kozlov called himself Popov, but he hadn’t asked.
He had expected Walker to say exactly what he had said. Limonov replied, “My client requires the conversion. He is willing to pay you a premium in addition to your normal rate. He is offering an additional ten million dollars U.S. to you when this is completed.”
Walker hesitated for nearly a minute. Finally, he said, “Often it benefits me to beat around the bush a little. To avoid being too direct. It’s good business. And it’s good for my relationships. But right now I feel the need to be quite direct.”
Limonov said, “I welcome that, Mr. Walker.”
“Good.” He leaned closer. “You are out of your fucking mind, mate. Whoever your client is, it is obvious he is doing this for the sole purpose of laundering money. And that amount of money, it’s safe to say, is bad news.” Walker pointed an accusatory finger out. “That’s bad bloody business for me. If eight B U.S. enters into the market and then disappears out of the market in a bloody month, Bitcoin will be known as nothing more than a money-laundering transfer vehicle. It will bring in more regulators, it will push away nervous clients, and it will attract more nefarious blokes like you who cause trouble. We don’t fuckin’ need any of that, mate, and we will be better off without your eight billion than we would be with your eight billion popping in and out of the market.”
Andrei Limonov was surprised by the words of the man in front of him, and the ethics they implied. Of course cryptocurrency was a money-laundering tool.