Time had reached February of '92, the collapse of the Soviet Union was old news.

Whether it was Russia, Ukraine... these non-magical nations, or the Gringotts of Europe, the Gringotts of the Americas, all had ambitiously embarked on their new chapters, throwing themselves into busy work in this New Year, just after Christmas.

However, at this tense and busy juncture, a goblin deputy supervisor of the Gringotts Investment Department, known for his prudence and dedication, left his post during working hours for the first time, and came to the archive door deep within the Gringotts Venture Capital Department.

Boggart retrieved all the investment reports that had been filed in recent months, and spread them out one by one on the open space in front of him, carefully searching for something with a restless mind. By the time the goblin elder in charge of daily inspection work came over, the empty room in front of the archive had been covered with dense files, like a frightening white spider web.

The goblins in charge of the archives did not stop Boggart's absurd behavior. On the contrary, almost all the goblins present were frantically helping to unpack and sort the files, calculating and placing these white documents according to some strange logic.

"Boggart, what are you doing...?"

The elderly goblin elder frowned. Before he could finish speaking, he had already seen the stack of special archive reports piled up around Boggart—Gringotts would mark all investment projects that were definitely abandoned with a touch of black on the side, indicating that they were no longer being followed up. And the pile beside Boggart was almost forming a black curtain.

"Elder, our investment plan in the former Soviet Union has been sniped in advance by mysterious forces..."

According to Gringotts' previous operating logic, as mid-to-high-level managers, neither Douglas, Boggart, Leos... would be exposed to the business that was directly assessed and abandoned by the lower-level goblin employees. This was also to improve the efficiency of the Investment Department.

Usually, they would only directly handle investments that were expected to be profitable, and failed projects that were confirmed to have losses. As for those projects that deviated too much from the Venture Capital Department's pre-set target values, they would be directly marked in black and piled up in the archives.

The reasons for these abandonments were also varied. For example, the price fluctuation ratio exceeded expectations, the subject matter had been frozen and mortgaged by one's own capital during the valuation process, there was controversy over the types and forms of payment currency, and the market's attitude was ambiguous with high risks.

However, the current proportion of abandoned projects was a bit too high…

If it weren't for a collective mental retardation among the lower-level employees, then there must have been a huge mistake in some link, which would have formed this phenomenon—in fact, according to past experience, this situation would have affected normal business a long time ago, but the blank market left by the former Soviet Union was too large, which led to these abandoned files not having an immediate impact.

Leos hesitated for a few seconds, his eyes flashed fiercely, and he waved his hand behind him.

"Come on, help Deputy Supervisor Boggart to find all the letters of investment intention that have been marked as abandoned from October last year to now, and summarize all the reasons that appear in them!"

There was no doubt that European Gringotts had been strongly sniped.

The war had begun ahead of schedule.

That night, the Gringotts Goblin Elder Council, and senior staff from Gringotts' major core institutions gathered in the large conference room and announced this news—those who knew how to use this "abandonment mechanism" loophole to attack were most likely the American goblins who had also used this operating system.

And from the final feedback results, the main cause of the premium, and the existence that took the initiative to engage in a head-on market confrontation with Gringotts, was mainly manipulated using forms such as dollars and dragots (the American galleons). Fortunately, due to Boggart's early discovery, Gringotts only needed to continue to increase investment and raise the budget threshold to smash these tricks.

"There are too many entrants wandering around the former Soviet market. It is difficult for us to track the flow of funds of each force. However, in view of this situation, the Elder Council has a contingency plan to fully relax the risk review level, absorb a large amount of loans and loose money in the non-magical market, release galleon reserves, and impact the exchange rate of dragots—suspend profit! The war has begun!"

With the promulgation of the "Financial War Order," Gringotts, like a precisely structured war machine, every goblin employee and department turned into tightly meshing gears, operating rapidly.

Some of the older goblins were no strangers to this situation.

Capital seeks profit, but the truly terrifying state of capital is to completely ignore short-term interests, use money to actively create losses, and turn all zero-sum games into the most brutal and primitive game of comparing size.

This situation was not uncommon. As long as it could be determined that the opponent had already fallen into the vortex, according to countless historical verifications, the Gringotts Wizarding Bank, which had a huge cash flow and the right to mint currency, could always become the last one to survive.

At this time, studying local gains and losses had lost its meaning.

Gringotts only needed to constantly increase prices, buy, loan, absorb deposits, and release gold. Perhaps there would be occasional failures, but the opponent would definitely pay a more painful price. No one paid attention to those abandoned projects in the past, and no one sorted out the increasing loss figures on the income statement.

Everyone knew that the numbers of losses and debts were meaningless before the final settlement. If there must be something really important, then mastering the right to puncture the financial bubble might be particularly important.

And for European Gringotts, this could be said to be an almost certain victory.

Before digesting this windfall from the non-magical world, the capital that the American goblins could control was definitely not as good as the headquarters of the European Gringotts Wizarding Bank. In other words, their "health bar" would be much "shorter" than that of the European goblins.

Therefore, after the analysis of Leos and other senior goblin investment masters, the final result would only be two.

1. The American goblins could not support this tragic "currency meat grinder", and chose to use their first-mover advantage in the market share they had mastered to puncture the false prosperity of the ruble in advance, form a currency shrinkage in a short period of time, and earn capital to leave.
2. The Gringotts Wizarding Bank headquarters, through cost-free capital investment, gradually gained control of the profit-loss reversal button, quietly waiting for the American goblins to be on the verge of death due to the break of the capital chain and the outbreak of debt, and then came out to clean up the mess and complete the final winner-takes-all.

……

Meanwhile, Hogwarts, in the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor's office.

The same conversation and analysis resounded in this "ill-omened land" that had just changed owners not long ago. While eating the fresh black caviar that Grindelwald brought back from Ukraine, Hermione quietly helped the old man analyze the situation.

"I still don't understand, little girl."

Grindelwald rubbed his brow, trying to digest the "financial knowledge" mini-class that Hermione teacher had just finished, his wrinkled face was full of confusion and worry.

"Since everything is profiting the goblins, doesn't that mean that we have been giving money to the goblins all these days?"

"From the current situation, it seems to be the case... After all, this is the most basic law of capital plunder, gathering enough chips, manipulating the free market, harvesting dividends and perfectly withdrawing... This is a classic technique that has been repeated countless times."

Hermione nodded casually, carefully licking the silver spoon in her hand, and said softly.

"However… the above two points, and even countless points, must be based on a very important premise."

The girl sat on the desk, her legs kicking in the air, gently shaking the spoon in her hand.

"Whether it's devaluation or appreciation. Currency must still have circulation attributes—in other words, it needs to ensure that it is still a special commodity that exists in the market, rather than..."