Taxes Related to Staking

I understand this subreddit is focused on Bitcoin, but I am hoping we could get a discussion started around the tax treatment of the different current and upcoming ways to stake crypto, which might also benefit users with wrapped coins (WBTC, etc.).

I have enumerated the different ways one can participate in staking below (feel free to add more if I am missing any) and for each of them, my understanding of the tax treatment after some research.

I understand the CRA has not issued specific guidance on staking so currently the recommendation is to follow the guidance for mining - either classified as a hobby (pay capital gains tax at time of sale with cost basis of zero) vs. business (pay income tax the year in which the reward is earned (and add to cost basis) and pay capital gains tax at time of sale).

Running Validator Node: maintain a node on Ethereum's beacon chain and earn ETH that cannot be withdrawn until the merge and until withdrawals are permitted

Taxable event occurs when rewards can be withdrawn - classified as hobby vs. business, see above.

Staking Through CeFi: exchange ETH for BETH and then BETH for ETH (on Binance)

Taxable event occurs when ETH is sold for BETH (and again if BETH is sold back for ETH) - capital gains tax given your cost basis for ETH (or BETH).

Staking Through DeFi (Tokenized Staking) - Running Validator Node: maintain a 16 ETH minipool (or full 32 ETH pool) through RocketPool (also need 10% RPL) and earn rETH

Taxable event occurs when the rETH is sold - capital gains tax given cost basis of zero.

Staking Through DeFi (Tokenized Staking) - Staking: exchange ETH for rETH and then rETH for ETH (noting that the value of rETH is not pegged to ETH so the staking rewards make rETH worth more than ETH)

Taxable event occurs when the ETH is sold for rETH (and again if rETH is sold back for ETH) - capital gains tax given your cost basis for ETH (or rETH).

I expect some of the above to not be exactly correct so please help us clarify the tax treatments under the different scenarios and let's get a discussion going!

I say we can still go big... If we hurry.

I know there are readers on here who don't have the Bitcoin maximalist mindset and see bitcoin going to $10 million within their lifetimes, but literally _Millions_ of people like me do. That's not hopium talking, there are plenty of polls these days. From a $60k bitcoin to a $10m bitcoin is over 166X returns on a savings account. 166 TIMES returns, probably within a decade, definitely within 2-3. What better way to come up with the vast amounts of moulah needed to fund a multi-billion dollar seasteading community?

Let's say we work on a serious proposal with blueprints and all that, and find out that a proper seastead that is self-sufficient would cost us $5 Billion USD in today's dollars to build. (totally spitballing here.) I mean really proper, such as having backups for the desal, solar, internet connections, hospital, food farming, and marina repair shops. Everything we'd need to get a community of 500 or more into the deep water.

If we wait until more people arrive and the tech is more feasible, that could be in 10, 20, or even 50 more years... But this rise in Bitcoin's price is a 1-time event that is happening in the present. The last time such a valuable thing (gold) went from worthless to the world's reserve money in the eyes of the world, it took thousands of years, but today the internet is making it happen in just a few short decades.

We really need to get started saving in a bitcoin fund NOW, so we don't miss those sick 166x gains. $5 billion of today's dollars divided by 166 is only $30.1 million dollars, which is only 501 bitcoins. And that's assuming bitcoin doesn't just keep growing in value forever. (Which it may, due to people losing coins.)

I repeat: We need to save ~501 Bitcoins now to fund a $5 billion seasteading city later. This is a totally achievable goal, especially since so many bitcoiners are already seasteaders. The more bitcoin's price goes up, however, the more that number of bitcoins in savings needs to go up as well though. We really can't afford to wait!

Yes, this comes with other challenges, such as who we can trust to watch over the private keys and how we determine & execute maturity. It would also bring up the question of how we can incentivize people to do all the work like draw up proper blueprints, research technology and materials, onboard suppliers, find & coordinate the inhabitants, etc. I'd argue that these problems all need solving no matter what approach we take, and having a large, publicly-auditable pool of bitcoins in our care would smooth these problems out nicely as it grows.

I don't have all the answers, but the problem of who to trust with the private keys seems obvious to me: We minimize the trust in any human, and put together a solid multisignature wallet with something like 10 keys that at least 8 of us would need to sign in order to spend any funds. The key bearers would be split between the folks who care the most about seasteading and the biggest donors. (Joe Quirk & Patri would obviously get one each, but if Elon Musk donated 100 coins then he'd get one too, etc.) We'd have to get all those keys in place with sound recovery strategies for each and every key before we start loading the wallet with funds.

And just in case this sounds a little too-long-term for some of you impatient folks, (myself included) we can always raise more than 501 Bitcoins. There are liberty lovers out there with literally thousands and thousands of coins and no way to spend them all in their lifetimes.

My thesis on why Bitcoin will continue exponential growth this year please provide critique

Bitcoin and the Global Stagflation Crisis of 2022/2023

Written 21-March-2021

TL;DR Bitcoin/Cryptocurrency is the only major fixed supply commodity, and there is a global stagflation crisis(which has never happened before) coming within the next year or two. Bitcoin will keep its exponential growth in value.

Background:

Inflation and low interest rates incentivize two things: borrowing and spending.

Low interest rates incentivize borrowing and spending because it makes it cost less to borrow and makes it more viable to leverage for profits by acquiring assets.

Inflation incentivizes borrowing because money borrowed now is worth more than the debt paid later since the debt loses value over time, and incentivizes acquiring assets that won’t devalue overtime unlike the underlying asset

Scenario:

The recent stimulus package just passed by the Biden administration is a nearly $2 Trillion package in total doubling the stimulus package passed by the Trump administration. The first stimulus package focused more and corporations and small businesses, leading to a package that infused a lot of money into the economy while not really affecting the consumer price index used to measure inflation. This most recent stimulus package is more focused on giving the people money to boost the economy and will affect the consumer price index significantly. Inflation numbers are hidden in the CPI due to equities and real estate not being included which have both been pumped into a massive bubble for the past couple of years. Even though the CPI shows there is no inherent rise in inflation, a common indicator of inflation is a shortage in supply caused by more buying pressure in the form of newly created money. The list for commodities and products currently in a supply shortage is massive. The list is as follows:

semiconductors/autos, headphones/game consoles, plastics, steel/aluminum, coolers/drinkware, sofas, boats, seafood, meat/dairy, roller skates, fitness equipment, garden furniture, hot tubs/baths

​

https://preview.redd.it/vz6z4xpukfo61.png?width=481&format=png&auto=webp&s=cecbcb7ffd1aa6255772f5ea69b396086e3c8547

This report by Goldman Sachs global investment research shows a large disruption in the supply chain, most likely caused by inflation.

This leads to the everything bubble(specifically real estate and equities), which is the finding that nearly every asset under the sun has gained a tremendous amount of value within the last several years. The bond market is starting to notice this trend and is in a massive sell off causing a spike in long term treasury bond yields. The fed is working to artificially lower the the long term treasury yield by continuing to buy debt. Jerome Powell has recently stated that the federal reserve is in the process of buying $80 billion in treasuries and $40 billion in mortgage backed securities. Which will keep the stock market to continue rising as well as the housing market. Many in the bond market are afraid of these recent actions and continue to try and liquidate their positions to flee to assets that will not devalue like the dollar. This has caused a lot of volatility in the last several weeks in the market. Jerome Powell has gone on the news to try and calm the market down. In summary, he has stated that the economy is not doing well in many sectors as unemployment is still in high numbers especially in the African American and Hispanic demographics and this is his number one priority. He says that the fed does not plan to raise rates any time soon until this problem can be fixed. So everyone knows inflation is coming, but his response? He stated that this inflation is transitory and will only affect the United States for a short amount of time. He expressed that inflation levels moderately above 2% for some time is an appropriate action. Another question is how much does "moderately above" mean, and how much is "for some time"? I believe that he believes that he can fix this economy through monetary policy. I trust that he will continue to print money until the cows come home, because there are multiple incentives for inflation right now. One obvious incentive as stated before is stimulating the economy, but another hidden incentive is lowering the national debt. Rising inflation devalues the tremendous debt that the United States holds and I think this is a major underlying factor to keep inflation at high levels for a long time. So where does all this end?

Tinfoil hat theory:

The end is coming for this massive bull run, but it has two outcomes. A continued rise of fear in the bond market raises bond yields to a point that the United States cannot reasonably control the interest rate without absolutely destroying the dollar. Another end scenario is the end of the global pandemic itself, when most of the population is vaccinated and the economy is starting to look healthy again causing the stimulus to end . In the pandemic many companies have struggled and lead to a massive amount of corporate debt being created. The size of the corporate bond market in the U.S. has ballooned to $10.5 trillion dollars and a significant portion of this debt is linked to zombie companies(look up the definition of zombie company if unfamiliar). If rates rise it will create a domino effect of killing the current zombie companies while also adding more to the list. A raise in rates will also kill the housing market bubble. As borrowing becomes more expensive, less buying pressure will cause real estate prices to fall leaving many new homeowners left holding the bag. This will also cause these new home owners to possibly sell their homes to buy a more valuable home for the same price as their current home further lowering the real estate market. Also as rates rise, the cash flows of many companies start to look very unappealing leading to a massive sell off in the stock market.

With these two outcomes, they are heavily leading to a stagflation crisis for the United States, but this is still looking at the small picture. The actual big picture of this is that all of these events are not localized to the United States and almost every country in the world is doing this in some form. What we are looking at is a global stagflation crisis which has never happened before. For future outlook, there are two countries of focus on specifically Japan and China. Japan is probably the most famous example of stagflation and how it affected their economy. In the 1980’s we saw a massive rise in the Nikkei 225(Japanese market index). In the late 1980’s is when the stagflation crisis hit Japan and they did not recover from their equity values until as of recently. Which has taken 40 years to recover. One thing to consider is if they actually recovered or not? I believe that they just reset the clock on stagflation as they, like all other countries in the world, tried printing their way out of the coronavirus problem, causing a possible stagflation round 2 for japan.

Picture of Nikkei 225 below:

​

https://preview.redd.it/3ihzk4oxkfo61.png?width=499&format=png&auto=webp&s=7bb49cb08c9bab7a56c0feefc5cdfbd082aab2c3

I believe China can be a good indicator of the future of America’s economic market, because they arguably got hit just as hard, they are also in the same bubble scenario that most countries are in, have similar economic size, and are ahead in the coronavirus recovery cycle. Recently Beijing is set to “tighten credit policy, particularly in the property sector, as evidence that economic growth has reached its peak and is set to decline”, and “Chinese economic analyst think that United States will maintain its loose monetary policy until at least the end of 2023 to support its economic recovery and labour market have reinforced concerns in Beijing as it tries to reduce the risk of domestic asset bubbles by gradually tapering off stimulus policies enacted last year”

Source for quotes: China Macro Economy/Chinese economists debate potential for domestic stagflation, with most dismissing the risk by Cissy Zhou

This is the beginning of a financial crisis the world has never seen before and I think marks the beginning for bitcoin becoming a currency for the world.

Bitcoin is a limited asset. Before bitcoin there was no fixed supply asset. The closest thing to compare bitcoin to is gold as a store of value. Gold is inherently a terrible store of value due to the constant dilution of value caused by a yearly increase in global available supply. A common argument for Bitcoin is that it has no intrinsic value, which is objectively false. Robert Metcalfe who is an early pioneer to starting the internet and co-inventing the ethernet, is a prominent figure who received the 2003 Marconi award for promulgating what is known as Metcalfe's Law. Metcalfe’s law states that the value/utility of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected nodes/users of the system. Before this year I would have argued that Bitcoin was a risky investment, but the network now has a lot of support and is quickly growing in functionality. Investing in Bitcoin is becoming more mainstream as people like Kevin O’Leary publicly stating that he allocates 3% of his portfolio to bitcoin, many companies like Tesla are starting to acquire Bitcoin, Many fintechs like Paypal are starting to utilize bitcoin, Bitcoin is starting to look more attractive to big banks as they acquire cryptocurrency assets and exchanges like the Bank of New York Mellon, and last but not least exchange traded funds centered around bitcoin are being created and coming to the stock market. The more people that invest in bitcoin, the more the value grows exponentially and the safer it becomes. It is argued that bitcoin looks like a bubble and is part of the everything bubble, but I only think that is partially true. As every nation's currency lowers in value, bitcoin starts looking more and more attractive as a hedge, and the more people investing in bitcoin, the more the value and safety of bitcoin as an investment increases. I think it is safe to say that bitcoin will easily double in value before the end of the year.

This is not financial advice do whatever with your money.

Storing between 10 and 20 BTC. Am I at risk with my methods?

So, this is a throwaway for obvious reasons. I'm going to give enough detail for hopefully a good conversation and an accurate assessment of the situation but I won't be taking screenshots or photos to supply proof. Believe me or don't but I would just really like to get the opinion of a lot of smart people who know more than I do about this topic. (I'm no slouch, but I know I don't know everything.) In advance, thank you for anything you can contribute.

I currently hold between 10 and 20 BTC in a wallet.dat file attached to Bitcoin Core 0.21.0.

The software is installed on a top of the line enterprise grade laptop. It is a brand new machine that was sealed in the box. It has Windows 10 on it and was NEVER used for anything else. Windows has been updated as have all the drivers, BIOS, etc. No plugins have been installed in the browser. (Edge Chromium.) The SSD in this laptop is encrypted using a complex password that has never been used anywhere else. Also, I am the only person who has ever touched this laptop (since it left the factory of course) and this laptop was chosen randomly from a stack of around 50 identical machines. There is no way that anyone knew I'd ever be using it for this purpose. This laptop has not been compromised.

The laptop is stored in a large safe inside a locked and hardened room that is monitored for entry by a dedicated security system and there are cameras in the room. Nobody can get into this room without me knowing.

The WiFi network that this laptop connects to is dedicated to just this laptop. Device isolation is enabled, meaning that even though no other devices are on this network, even if there were, the router doesn't allow them to communicate with each other. Internet access is the only thing permitted for this network. The password for the WiFi network is complex and hasn't ever been used anywhere for anything else.

The wallet.dat file is encrypted using Bitcoin Core's standard password method. The password is quite long, complex and hasn't been used anywhere else for anything ever. I'm not, at least for the purposes of this discussion, overly concerned with the risk of losing that password and losing access to the wallet.dat file. Let's assume that the password is adequately backed up and that instructions have been left with a lawyer in the event of my untimely demise. (And that the lawyer can be trusted, etc.)

The wallet.dat file is a newer HD version and several backups of it have been taken both before and after the BTC was associated with it. BTC has been received by multiple addresses in the wallet.dat file. (Between 5 and 10 receiving addresses.)

I have taken another brand new identical laptop and have installed Windows fresh along with Bitcoin Core. I've taken the backup of the wallet.dat and have successfully restored it to the second machine. I also performed a test transaction by initiating a send, entering the password for the wallet and then aborting once the final confirmation window showed. (Only shows after a successful password has been entered.) Everything worked fine. (I have since secure erased the SSD in the second laptop BTW.)

If my house burns to the ground, I have the wallet.dat and passwords backed up sufficiently that I can recover. (I do not have the passwords digitally recorded anywhere.) One thing I have not done is extract my private keys from my wallet.dat file.

Ok. Here are the million dollar questions:

• What could go wrong with my methods?

• How could someone attack me outside of a $5 wrench attack?

• How could I screw it up so monumentally that I lose my BTC?

• Is there a benefit to getting a hardware wallet like a Trezor? What, really, is the difference? (I don't care about the cost of the laptop or comparing the cost of the laptop to a Trezor.)

• Should I be extracting the keys from my wallet.dat file and storing them safely somewhere in addition to keeping the file backed up securely? What is the benefit if so? (Obviously an offline method would be used.)

• Is there anything I'm doing that is a significant risk that can be mitigated by some suggestions you might have?

Thanks for reading and for anything you can contribute. See you all on the moon!

Rank 80 account with Makoto, Djeeta, Akino and 62,500 crystals + 103 gacha tickets.

I'm looking to sell my rank 80 account. I've been playing since shortly after global launch and the account is in good health.

I've barely rolled gacha at all since starting (about 50 rolls total). I re-rolled for Makoto, also got Djeeta and Akino along the way, and since then I've been stockpiling crystals for upcoming seasonal banners (possibly excessively so!) I do have most of the notable 2*, including Tamaki, Miyako, Kaori, Shiori, but I'm missing some such as Kuuka. I've not spent anything on the game, so start dash etc is still available.

Account has been played daily, usually with 3 refreshes, and nearly all content is cleared except for the latest batch of hard quests. I was in a good crew for both CBs (150-300 tier) and farmed the first event properly.

Currency: I have 62,500 crystals + 103 gacha tickets. I've been up to rank 177 in battle arena and rank 817 in princess arena, so there are still more crystals to be earned there, though not a huge amount.

I'm looking for $70USD by bitcoin. If interested, you can reach me here or on discord (crunchy#8925).

I've been playing on tablet rather than pc, so taking screenshots is a chore, but I will sort something out if there is any interest in the account.

I saw we can still go big... If we hurry.

I know there are readers on here who don't have the Bitcoin maximalist mindset and see bitcoin going to $10 million within their lifetimes, but literally _Millions_ of people like me do. That's not hopium talking, there are plenty of polls these days. From a $60k bitcoin to a $10m bitcoin is over 166X returns on a savings account. 166 TIMES returns, probably within a decade, definitely within 2-3. What better way to come up with the vast amounts of moulah needed to fund a multi-billion dollar seasteading community?

Let's say we work on a serious proposal with blueprints and all that, and find out that a proper seastead that is self-sufficient would cost us $5 Billion USD in today's dollars to build. (totally spitballing here.) I mean really proper, such as having backups for the desal, solar, internet connections, hospital, food farming, and marina repair shops. Everything we'd need to get a community of 500 or more into the deep water.

If we wait until more people arrive and the tech is more feasible, that could be in 10, 20, or even 50 more years... But this rise in Bitcoin's price is a 1-time event that is happening in the present. The last time such a valuable thing (gold) went from worthless to the world's reserve money in the eyes of the world, it took thousands of years, but today the internet is making it happen in just a few short decades.

We really need to get started saving in a bitcoin fund NOW, so we don't miss those sick 166x gains. $5 billion of today's dollars divided by 166 is only $30.1 million dollars, which is only 501 bitcoins. And that's assuming bitcoin doesn't just keep growing in value forever. (Which it may, due to people losing coins.)

I repeat: We need to save ~501 Bitcoins now to fund a $5 billion seasteading city later. This is a totally achievable goal, especially since so many bitcoiners are already seasteaders. The more bitcoin's price goes up, however, the more that number of bitcoins in savings needs to go up as well though. We really can't afford to wait!

Yes, this comes with other challenges, such as who we can trust to watch over the private keys and how we determine & execute maturity. It would also bring up the question of how we can incentivize people to do all the work like draw up proper blueprints, research technology and materials, onboard suppliers, find & coordinate the inhabitants, etc. I'd argue that these problems all need solving no matter what approach we take, and having a large, publicly-auditable pool of bitcoins in our care would smooth these problems out nicely as it grows.

I don't have all the answers, but the problem of who to trust with the private keys seems obvious to me: We minimize the trust in any human, and put together a solid multisignature wallet with something like 10 keys that at least 8 of us would need to sign in order to spend any funds. The key bearers would be split between the folks who care the most about seasteading and the biggest donors. (Joe Quirk & Patri would obviously get one each, but if Elon Musk donated 100 coins then he'd get one too, etc.) We'd have to get all those keys in place with sound recovery strategies for each and every key before we start loading the wallet with funds.

And just in case this sounds a little too-long-term for some of you impatient folks, (myself included) we can always raise more than 501 Bitcoins. There are liberty lovers out there with literally thousands and thousands of coins and no way to spend them all in their lifetimes.

Prologue, Volume 1, Assassin's Creed Dilemma

*DISCLAIMER The characters and events depicted in this post are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. This is a series of fanfiction of Assassin's Creed lore set in South Korea starting in September 2012 CE. The copyright of the following fanfiction all goes to 100% u/WagieCagie*.* Any individual may feel free to share the images, texts, and contents of the following fanfiction. If so, I only ask the individuals to credit me by mentioning my username u/WagieCagie.*

​

“When I was a little girl, the first thing I remember is a bag full of money. Just tons of money I accidentally found in a large suitcase in a room. As I was just a 6 year old who thought the largest currency in the world was the largest coin, 500 Won, I had no idea how much there was in the paper bill. But I’m sure it must be worth over 9 billion Won. Another thing I remember in the room that day was my Sailor Moon doll. My one and only favorite thing in my entire childhood as it made me feel safe and accompanied.”

A bump on the road as well as a gentle thud on the left shoulder wakes her up at the right timing.

“Hey, wake up! il-uh-nah-yo!” gently yells Jackson.

“Mmmmh… Thanks for waking me up; are we here?” replies Min-Jung rubbing her tiresome eyes.

“You look extra tired than usual. Gwen-chan-a-yo?”“It’s all right. It’s just the stupid same dream I’ve had for a long time. By the way, does my English sound terrible to you?” asks Min-Jung, raising her eyebrow with a smirk.

“Nono, not at all! It’s just that I want to continue practicing Korean even though I’m American - finding your heritage, right?” answers Jackson with his awkward high-pitched voice when nervous.

“Hey, Jackson. I know that she is pretty with her kpop girl look but will you just give a break to the poor girl? She has a lot of work to do; and, I think you also have a lot as well, right?” interrupts Da-Hye as she gets off from and closed the door of Starex.

“Sorry, Da-Hye! mi-an-hye-yo” replies Jackson in a quick yet sharp tone.

“Mister, I truly appreciate you for trying to respect and learn the culture and mindsets of us native Koreans; but, I also want to practice my English. And who’s your superior?”

“You.. Ms. Ko” answered Jackson in a rather sad tone this time.

“Good. Then let’s continue speaking in English, capiche?”“Yes, boss lady!”

“Come on, Da-Hye. He’s just trying to be helpful to us. You know that he’s the next best historian since Shaun Hastings, especially for our operations. I’m sure he must have been through a lot on the stateside to get where he is now as well. Let’s work together on this one, please?” Min-Jung joins the conversation.

“Yes.. sorry, Min-Jung.” both assistants apologized to her.

As the three Assassins are unloading crates from Starex, a call reaches Jackson’s phone.

“Yellow?” asks Jackson in a juvenile voice.

“Jackson, I get that you are Korean by blood but you know I don’t like you saying it. It feels just.. weird when you say it.”“Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.” Jackson replies back sarcastically in Italian an accent.“Okay, you are crossing the line now. Da-Hye, get Jackson back to the stateside; mission abort.”“Bishop, if only this mission were just about tracking down some money laundering on bitcoin, I’d finish the job in 10 minutes and personally escort this maniac back to O’hare. But unfortunately, you know this mission is not.” Da-Hye talks loudly over Jackson’s shoulders to reach Bishop on speakerphone.

“Yes.. if only, Da-Hye. Have you arrived at our warehouse under Song-Gong Mountain?” quietly sighs Bishop.

“Yes.” says all three.

“Great. Hope you get yourself comfortable inside because the last time it was used was when a group of Mentor Baek’s recruits didn’t have enough time to do vacuum cleaning before leaving back to Japan a few months ago.”

“No worries, Bishop! I’m sure Mr. Jackson will do the chores for his lady before she enters the Animus.” winks Da-Hye at Jackson.

“Alright, as long as you three are working together, that’s all that matters. Remember. I will be checking on you guys once every few weeks but besides that, you are all you have. Abstergo may have long dominated here but there is still hope in the east. We’ll do our best to deal with the mess in the western hemisphere; in the meantime, use whatever means necessary to pioneer a new generation of the brotherhood in your hometown then expand. There is a reason your people have been the only divided country for over 60 years on Earth due to the conflict between the first Korean Templars and Assassins back then. Unfortunately, the lost generation of both sides went off-grid and worked behind the scenes of modern Korean history. I assume it might be a little different to the Templars, but shortly after the Korean war, the Korean assassins both, seemingly and allegedly, cut contacts with us in the west, thus the loss of all records of the entire Korean brotherhood. But thankfully, now with Mentor Mochizuki’s support, your team is the first-ever Korean brotherhood to receive the replica of the official Animus of Abstergo - design sent by Rebecca Crane. Your missions are to

1. Figure out who exactly the original Korean assassins were
2. Check any individual in Korea who came in contact with the pieces of Eden hidden throughout the history of the peninsula (well, at least just the southern half; my bad)
3. Confirm the locations of any precursor artifact or temple/vault.

I myself have no idea exactly when we will be able to deal with the Templars in the west; but, one thing I know for sure is that we will ask for your help more and more in the future should things go south for us. So please find out contingencies and alternatives for our future while we still have time. Good luck, bishop out.”

“Yeah, totally no pressure at all, guys. Cheer up! Let’s first get some Shin Ramen. A hearty meal for a hearty job, eh?” Da-Hye tries her best to solely boost the morale of her team whilst the other two’s faces turn pale as they had not expected their responsibility to be this much.

“Come on, guys! Once this is all over, I know the best sam-gyup-sal place in Seoul! A good friend of mine runs the place; I bet it’s even juicer and tender than those American briskets, Yankee boy.”

“Wow, now you are crossing the line, boss lady! I’ll show you how much better briskets are than sam-gyup-sal on holidays.” Jackson reacts to Da-Hye’s humor accordingly to not discourage Min-Jung who most looks sad and lethargic already.

“But.. when will we have our holidays if the brotherhood in the west fails?” softly asks Min-Jung.

For the first time, both Da-Hye and Jackson are speechless and stutter for more than 20 seconds.

“N, nothing to worry, Min-Jung! Jackson and I will be here to protect you 24/7 and make you feel like you are on vacation right now. Your most favorite snack since childhood is cream & red bean bread with banana milk, right? Jackson will drive to the town and pick up all the things you always enjoy by the time you wake up from Animus! Right, Jackson?” Da-Hye pats Min-Jung’s round head with her long black hair.

“The training has already been too much for me.. But I guess I’ll do my best for you guys.. Let’s just get on with it” Quietly says Da-Hye, already on the chair while her two other partners haven’t finished setting up yet.

“Okay, okay, Min-Jung. Then please take some nap on the chair as you said you had a bad dream in sleep at the truck. We’ll get you connected to the Animus and wake you up in the Animus! ja-go-it-suh-yo” Jackson smiles and gently talks to her.

“Thank you, guys, for setting the things for me. I’ll take a nap for now. Wake me up whenever you want in the Animus. I just need a little bit more sleep..” Min-Jung closes her eyes then quietly inhales and exhales slowly through her nose soon after.