What if Asteroid mining begins?
The first commercial asteroid-mining mission returns platinum-group metals, opening off-Earth resources and pressuring terrestrial metal prices long-term.
how we built this number — every step
The class rate is measured from our dated, sourced event library (decade-normalized Poisson — the full table is public at base_rates.json). The variant’s share within its class is the analyst’s editorial call, published so you can audit it. A wider range means thinner precedent. Full recipe: methodology · scored at Reality Check.
The butterfly cascade
How this trigger trickles across markets, left → right — the root shock, its first‑order moves, then the ripple effects. Drag any node; tap a market for its real price history.
Resolution timeline — how this probability is moving
Our model's odds (gold) over time vs the crowd's (Polymarket, blue), from the past toward the 3–10 years horizon. Each dot is a real macro event that nudged the probability — green pushed it up, red pushed it down. Tap a dot for the source. The gold path is an illustrative reconstruction anchored to today's estimate — real dated events, not a live re-estimate history.
What it would mean
If this plays out, it is a mixed shock. The first commercial asteroid-mining mission returns platinum-group metals, opening off-Earth resources and pressuring terrestrial metal prices long-term. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Industrial demand ▲ · Space economy ▲ — which propagate through our causal graph to the markets below.
If it happens — the markets it would move
Biggest moves first. Projected moves are cascade-model priors; hist A–B% = what comparable past events actually did (measured abnormal returns), and model prior · unmeasured marks markets with no analogue backing yet. Tap any market for its price history.
| Market | Class | Projected move | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▲ +0.3% hist +0.11–+0.3% · other way +1.2% (n=12) |
| 2 | Lockheed LMT 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.3% hist -3.67–+1.65% · other way -1.18% (n=12) |
| 3 | Northrop NOC 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.3% hist -2.69–+1.47% · other way -0.9% (n=12) |
| 4 | RTX RTXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.3% hist -3.95–+0.99% · other way -2.53% (n=12) |
| 5 | Freeport (copper) FCX 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.2% hist -3.29–+2.81% · other way -3.59% (n=12) |
| 6 | Solana SOLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▲ +0.2% hist -11.75–+5.97% · other way +4.67% (n=5) |
| 7 | Tech sector XLK 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.2% hist -0.11–+0.43% · other way +1.27% (n=12) |
| 8 | MicroStrategy MSTRon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +0.2% hist -12.77–+24.48% · other way +0.34% (n=12) |
Probable recommendation
Historical precedent — what analogous events actually did
Across 15 analogous events (overlap‑weighted), as abnormal returns — market beta stripped, so it's the event's own effect, not the market backdrop. Shown at 20 days (persistent) and 5 days (immediate); ↺ fades = the two horizons disagree. Confidence = consistency × sample × significance.
| Asset | History says | Abnormal (20d · 5d) | Hit | n | Confidence | vs cascade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RTX RTX | SHORT | -3.5% · 5d -2.9% | 81% | 15 | 0.55 | ⚠ differs |
| Bitcoin BTC | LONG | +9.2% · 5d -3.4% ↺ fades | 76% | 12 | 0.44 | · |
| SOL SOL | SHORT | -11.7% · 5d -7.6% | 80% | 10 | 0.38 | ⚠ differs |
| LMT LMT | SHORT | -3.6% · 5d -3.6% | 71% | 15 | 0.32 | ⚠ differs |
| MSTR MSTR | LONG | +24.2% · 5d +0.6% | 67% | 13 | 0.31 | ✓ matches cascade |
| NOC NOC | SHORT | -2.8% · 5d -1.4% | 69% | 14 | 0.29 | ⚠ differs |
| High-yield credit HYG | SHORT | -0.2% · 5d -0.1% | 59% | 13 | 0.13 | · |
| 10y yield DGS10 | LONG | +11bp · 5d +4bp | 58% | 15 | 0.13 | · |
| Volatility VIX | SHORT | -0.1% · 5d -4.7% | 59% | 14 | 0.11 | · |
| NDX NDX | LONG | +0.1% · 5d -0.5% ↺ fades | 59% | 14 | 0.10 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Gold XAU | LONG | +0.1% · 5d -0.1% ↺ fades | 56% | 13 | 0.08 | · |
| FCX FCX | SHORT | -3.7% · 5d -0.6% | 48% | 13 | 0.00 | ⚠ differs |
| XLK XLK | LONG | +0.3% · 5d -0.1% ↺ fades | 41% | 13 | 0.00 | ✓ matches cascade |
| US dollar DXY | LONG | +0.1% · 5d -0.4% ↺ fades | 45% | 15 | 0.00 | · |