God of Technology: Creating the Internet in Another World-Chapter 427: These People Have Really Lost Their Minds!

"They’ve lost it. These people have really lost their minds."

Viscount Roster watched the steel prices soar past triple their original value, nearing quadruple, and couldn’t help muttering: "Who knows what’ll happen if this keeps going."

"Wonder which poor sucker’s gonna be stuck holding all that steel in the end."

"With that much steel, probably only the ultra-high-speed train system could use it all."

"I was thinking about doing a test run of the ultra-high-speed rail system, but now I think I’ll hold off. Better to wait till they crash the steel market, then buy everything up dirt cheap."

Honestly, if they were just using their family’s savings to speculate, Viscount Roster couldn’t care less. He had his own stuff to handle.

With magic-tech industrialization moving forward, he had way too much on his plate. Besides, he’d already signed contracts with Foster Iron Mine—he didn’t need to worry about steel shortages.

Worst case, he’d just send some people over to Foster Iron Mine, give them more mining equipment and furnaces, or help them boost production in other ways.

After all, he was one of Foster Iron Mine’s shareholders, and the company had been blessed by the God of Technology. Everyone gave the Church of Technology some respect.

Nobody was going to let steel speculation mess up the magic-tech industrialization process.

For Foster Iron Mine, as long as they didn’t lose money, they were good. Their steel was practically endless anyway.

Plus, it was super easy to mine.

But just now, while chatting with the dragons about the Dragon Island Development Company, they’d dropped a bombshell.

Those damn speculators had completely lost it. Who knows how many nobles had mortgaged their family castles, farmland, workshops, even their slaves and other people to Dragon Bank, borrowed massive amounts of cash, and dumped it all into the futures market.

If they managed to pass the hot potato before the music stopped, sure, they’d make bank.

But how many people could actually cash out?

Driven by greed, how could they possibly want to sell?

Honestly, put anyone else in their shoes and they’d probably do the same thing. Think about it—you’re holding steel worth 1 gold dragon today, 1.2 tomorrow, 1.3 the day after. In that situation, wouldn’t selling feel like leaving money on the table?

When it’s small amounts, whatever. But what if you’d thrown in a million gold dragons? Ten million?

That’s hundreds of thousands, even millions of gold dragons a day.

Heck, several generations’ worth of accumulated wealth couldn’t match one day’s gains. How could anyone resist?

Okay, say a few people actually did resist.

Say they really did manage to sell their steel at peak prices in this game of hot potato. Where would the money come from for whoever bought it?

Once the snowball got big enough, everyone buying in would be using borrowed money too.

And that’s assuming there even were buyers.

Eventually these buyers would run out too. People would naturally realize things had gone way past their expectations, they couldn’t sell anymore, and they’d be forced to actually take delivery of all that steel.

At that point, to get their hands on cash, their only option would be to sell cheap.

Now, some people might ask—what if those first sellers looking for buyers can’t find any?

Well, that just jumps straight to the final stage. People realize they can’t sell these steel futures anymore and start dumping them, with lots of folks slashing prices.

But when the money’s dried up, what good does cutting prices do? Still can’t sell it, and it still ends up in their hands.

Honestly, once prices start dropping, even if someone still has cash, they’re not gonna buy.

Because the myth of endless growth, of never dropping, would be over.

You could say right now, the only reason steel futures prices keep climbing is because of that myth.

Viscount Roster’s only thought at this point was that these noble lords playing with steel futures wouldn’t be able to hold onto their generations of accumulated wealth much longer—most of it would end up transferred to Foster Iron Mine.

And he’d get historically low steel prices.

The key was making sure that before that happened, the ultra-high-speed rail system didn’t get exposed. People only knew the concept, only knew Southern Development Corporation was building something.

But they had no idea how much steel the ultra-high-speed rail system actually needed.

Or what it could actually do once built.

If all that got out, steel prices naturally wouldn’t drop.

Might even make things worse.

One option: wait a bit and get a huge batch of super cheap steel, enough to build ultra-high-speed rail across the entire Kingdom of Dawn.

Other option: let it leak, those crazy investors get another rush of excitement, and the market that was about to collapse holds on even longer.

Which one to pick? Pretty obvious!

Plus, after prices crashed, then revealing the ultra-high-speed rail system would bring steel prices back to normal.

That’d be great for Foster Iron Mine too.

Great for the whole market, really.

Everything was clear as day.

After making his decision, Viscount Roster started contacting everyone in charge, making sure everything was set for what came next. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

Nidhogg the Dragon of Despair was shocked after hearing Viscount Roster out: "You’re saying those guys will never be able to pay back the gold dragons they borrowed?"

That was a massive amount of coins. If they really couldn’t pay it back, it’d have a huge impact on Dragon Bank.

"Don’t panic. Haven’t you thought about how this is the perfect opportunity for us to launch credit currency?" Viscount Roster said with a smile.

"What do you mean?" Nidhogg didn’t get it, waiting for an explanation.

"These noble lords mortgaged everything of value to you—countless castles, farmland, territories, all of it. And when you issue loans, you usually only lend 50% to 70% of the collateral’s value, right? So even if they don’t pay back, you still end up with tons of assets, don’t you?"

At this point Viscount Roster couldn’t help smiling. He didn’t immediately answer the question:

"After we launch credit currency, these assets’ value is gonna skyrocket. Actually, you could say these assets can serve as a foundation that gives people confidence in the credit currency."

"Of course, the impact won’t be that huge. If you don’t want them, transfer everything to me and I’ll slowly pay you for those assets. That works too."

After saying all that, Viscount Roster shifted gears and finally talked about credit currency.