The conference room was dimly lit, its cold sterility punctuated only by the glow of multiple screens displaying live metrics, graphs, and real-time intelligence reports. At the head of the long, polished table sat Lionel Steenberg, his fingers tented, his jaw tight, his piercing blue eyes fixed on the unfolding catastrophe displayed before him.
Across from him, his lead operative, Markus Reinhardt—a precision-minded analyst whose usual composure had been frayed by the past weeks’ relentless failures—was walking through the latest operation disrupt performance review.
"Mr. Steenberg," Reinhardt began cautiously, adjusting his glasses as he tapped on the console. The main screen flickered, showing red indicators everywhere—metrics plummeting, failed interventions, botched infiltration attempts. "As you can see, we have significant problems across all fronts."
Steenberg inhaled sharply, nostrils flaring. He didn’t speak yet. Instead, he let the room sit in thick, suffocating silence, forcing Reinhardt to feel the weight of his disappointment.
Reinhardt swallowed and pressed forward. "We expected the same playbook from Operation Choke Point 2.0 to be sufficient—cut off bank access, disable payment rails, seize assets, pressure intermediaries. But Pegged... it’s structured too far down the stack. There are no central intermediaries to pressure, no single point of failure to exploit. The traditional methods—they're ineffective."
A vein twitched on Steenberg’s temple. Ineffective. He hated that word.
Reinhardt hesitated but continued. "The decentralized network effect is working in their favor. Without dependency on banking rails, without stablecoin issuers to target, we are seeing unexpected resilience in their economic model. The lotteries are replenishing the system faster than we can disrupt them. It's self-healing."
Steenberg clenched his jaw. He had read the intelligence reports in private, but hearing them out loud—seeing the failure materialize in real-time—was insufferable. His eyes darted to the graph labeled Financial Repression Impact Score. A key indicator of Operation Disrupt’s success.
Instead of plunging, it was flatlining.
"We hit every major fiat on-ramp we could identify," Reinhardt continued, his voice now laced with unease. "The assumption was that once we cut off external liquidity, the network would dry up. But instead, they're adapting. Transactions are happening in stable denominations completely outside of our purview. They're not using the usual suspects—no exchanges, no OTC desks, nothing that can be easily pressured. We’ve seen increasing usage of their own synthetic liquidity mechanisms—the lotteries are sustaining the ecosystem faster than we can drain it."
Steenberg exhaled heavily, gripping the edges of his armrests. "You're telling me they built something immune to liquidity throttling?"
Reinhardt hesitated. "Not immune. But… resilient. The issue is how they're leveraging trust at the bottom level. The grassroots model is too effective. We’ve seen Pegged usage expand into markets where we have zero control—West Africa, Latin America, even Eastern Europe. The use cases are practical, not speculative. People are actually using this damn thing to move money."
Steenberg’s fingers drummed against the table, his patience wearing thin. His usual smug humor had vanished. The direct, immediate threat of Pegged was now fully materializing before his eyes.
"And infiltration?" His voice was sharp, clipped.
Reinhardt sighed. "We tried. But their governance model doesn’t operate like anything we’ve dealt with before. No token-weighted voting. No insider influence mechanisms. No VC choke points. Every single lottery participant receives governance weight—but only through continued engagement. The system naturally filters out infiltrators who don’t contribute."
A sharp, slow inhale from Steenberg.
"And the media campaign?"
Reinhardt winced. "The narrative war isn't working. The usual anti-crypto tropes—money laundering, terror financing, Ponzi accusations—aren’t sticking. The communities using Pegged don’t give a damn about what the IMF or the EU says. Worse, the lack of traditional influencers makes our astroturfing efforts ineffective. There are no CEOs to target, no charismatic public figures to discredit—just a faceless, self-perpetuating network."
Steenberg slammed his fist onto the table.
A moment of stunned silence filled the room.
"So," he said, voice deathly calm. "What you’re telling me, Markus, is that Operation Disrupt has utterly failed."
Reinhardt hesitated, then nodded once.
"Yes, sir."
Steenberg leaned back, tapping his fingers against the table. He was silent for a long time.
His mind, however, was a storm. He had hoped to avoid escalation, to break Pegged cleanly within the standard financial and regulatory playbook. He had relied on the tried-and-true formula: squeeze, pressure, disrupt, dismantle.
But now, that option was gone.
He closed his eyes briefly. He knew what had to come next.
Operation Choke Point 3.0.
A different kind of war.
The kind that involved covert pressure, threats, "off-the-record" enforcement, and unsanctioned operatives. Not just economic suppression, but direct, targeted force.
The kind of war that meant playing dirty.
He reopened his eyes, colder now. More certain. The rules had changed.
Steenberg turned to Reinhardt, his voice even, composed. "Prepare the transition to Phase Two."
Reinhardt stiffened. He knew what that meant.
"We’ll need different assets," Steenberg continued, standing up, adjusting his suit. "More kinetic pressure points. If we can’t sever the head, we’ll go for the arms and legs. Identify vulnerabilities. The people keeping this thing alive—find them, make their lives unlivable."
Reinhardt nodded slowly. This was going to get ugly.
Steenberg smoothed his tie, his demeanor once again that of the refined bureaucratic enforcer. But beneath it, the pure, ruthless will to win was crystallizing.
"Pegged wants to play from the bottom?" His voice was
sharp as a blade. "Fine."
"We’ll burn the foundation out from under them."
