In 2018, when the entire nation was swept up in the Bitcoin craze, the author revealed an astonishing strategy: by investing in dollars and leveraging compound interest, he earned 17 times the market return rate, becoming a billionaire with 70 billion won in assets. Americans live in the dollar sphere, while Koreans live in the won sphere; unless exchanging currency while traveling abroad, it’s difficult to truly grasp the value of foreign currency. The author shares a golden tip: when traveling in Southeast Asia, instead of exchanging directly into local currency, first convert to dollars and then exchange locally for a much more favorable exchange rate. It’s easier to understand if you think of the dollar not just as a medium of exchange, but as one of the ‘most stable coins’ with absolute value.

The principle is crystal clear: buy when the won is undervalued against the dollar and sell when it’s overvalued, based on the benchmark exchange rate. Coupled with the belief that value will inevitably recover over time, the rule ‘never cut your losses’ is straightforward. While reading various tips like preferential exchange fees, I wondered, ‘Can this method really yield significant profits?’ But upon seeing the ‘7 Split’ strategy—a named approach for split buying and selling—I was more amazed by the author’s thorough commitment to principles than by the method’s sophistication.

In truth, it’s often not a lack of knowledge about how to make money that holds us back, but a lack of patience to sustain the process. Won-dollar trading similarly requires monitoring exchange rate fluctuations caused by the time difference between the Korean and overseas markets to time buys and sells. This resonated deeply with me, as it mirrors my own practice of waking up at 4 a.m. daily to compare overseas and Korean cryptocurrency exchanges, predict trends, and rebalance my assets. Furthermore, the advice to secure won through labor income and wait for dollar-buying opportunities aligned perfectly with my approach, making me nod in agreement.

I became convinced that consistently trading daily and accumulating small profits could build significant assets through the magic of compound interest. The fact that profits from exchange rate gains are tax-free was particularly surprising. The dollar’s inherent characteristics—unlike stocks, it carries no risk of delisting or catastrophic, unrecoverable crashes—enabled a valuable mindset shift: even if exchange losses occur, one can recover profits by investing elsewhere while waiting. Stock or cryptocurrency investors often run out of patience, selling at the slightest dip to ‘lock in losses’—even though it’s not a loss until sold below the purchase price.

The author explains the process by which the US established the dollar as the global reserve currency and warns that Bitcoin’s value could vanish if the US were to ban it. While its price did crash due to Chinese government regulations, it ultimately rebounded even stronger, suggesting this scenario is unlikely. In fact, Bitcoin is absorbing a significant portion of the liquidity flooding the market due to US quantitative easing. Destroying its value overnight could potentially trigger global chaos. I gained significant insight from the author’s strategy of building the economic freedom everyone dreams of using the dollar as a safe asset, then linking it to stocks and real estate to create a solid portfolio. I too keep that lesson close to my heart, waking up at 4:30 a.m. today to energetically start my Monday.