What if the US cut a major economy off from SWIFT?
A SWIFT cutoff of a major economy's banking system is a tail-risk vol event: VIX spikes, forcing risk-parity/vol-target deleveraging that mechanically sells the Nasdaq and semis well beyond fundamentals. The defining analogue is the Feb-2022 freezing of Russia's reserves — the dollar-weaponization shock that gapped commodities and froze cross-border funding. Forward angle: each use accelerates de-dollarization and reserve diversification into gold/CNY rails, so the durable trade is long gold/non-sovereign hedges even as equities later retrace the vol spike.
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 1–3 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 risk-off shock. The US sanctions a major economy's banking system with a SWIFT cutoff. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Geopolitical risk ▲ · Trade tension ▲ — 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 | Volatility (VIX) VIXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Vol | ▲ +8.9% hist +1.55–+8.77% · other way +3.23% (n=12) |
| 2 | Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -5.0% hist -3.01–-1.57% · other way -0.37% (n=12) |
| 3 | Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -3.2% hist -2.02–-0.99% · other way +2.23% (n=12) |
| 4 | Tech sector XLK 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -3.4% hist -2.01–-0.87% · other way -0.34% (n=12) |
| 5 | Nvidia NVDAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.6% hist -1.91–-0.51% · other way +4.75% (n=12) |
| 6 | TSMC TSMon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.4% hist -3.1–-0.1% · other way +2.51% (n=12) |
| 7 | AMD AMDon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.2% hist -1.43–-0.63% · other way -0.48% (n=12) |
| 8 | Broadcom AVGOon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.2% hist -1.69–+0.91% · other way +0.88% (n=12) |
| 9 | Micron MUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.2% hist -3.61–+0.33% · other way +2.73% (n=12) |
| 10 | Marvell MRVLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.2% hist -2.34–-0.22% · other way +1.61% (n=12) |
| 11 | ASML ASMLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.0% hist -3.02–+0.18% · other way -1.68% (n=12) |
| 12 | S&P 500 SPXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -1.9% hist -1.69–-0.46% · other way +0.57% (n=12) |
| 13 | MicroStrategy MSTRon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.8% hist -2.45–+2.98% · other way +26.92% (n=12) |
| 14 | Qualcomm QCOMon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.5% hist -1.77–-0.09% · other way -0.69% (n=12) |
Probable recommendation
Why we may diverge from history
Trust the cascade's LONG on RTX/NOC: their negative reads come from April-2025 tariff windows that swamped defense with macro risk-off; a SWIFT cutoff is a direct geopolitical-conflict bid those analogues miss.
Historical precedent — what analogous events actually did
Across 35 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| COIN COIN | LONG | +17.9% · 5d +6.5% | 88% | 7 | 0.63 | ⚠ differs |
| TRY TRY | SHORT | -1.6% · 5d +0.4% ↺ fades | 80% | 19 | 0.50 | ✓ matches cascade |
| CNY CNY | SHORT | -0.7% · 5d -0.2% | 67% | 20 | 0.33 | ✓ matches cascade |
| ETH ETH | SHORT | -6.1% · 5d -8.1% | 71% | 14 | 0.33 | ✓ matches cascade |
| SOL SOL | LONG | +2.0% · 5d -11.7% ↺ fades | 75% | 7 | 0.30 | ⚠ differs |
| XCU XCU | SHORT | -1.1% · 5d -0.3% | 67% | 20 | 0.29 | ✓ matches cascade |
| NVDA NVDA | SHORT | -0.6% · 5d -3.5% | 65% | 20 | 0.22 | ✓ matches cascade |
| INTC INTC | SHORT | -1.8% · 5d -1.5% | 63% | 28 | 0.22 | ✓ matches cascade |
| CL CL | SHORT | -3.5% · 5d -1.9% | 63% | 20 | 0.21 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AUD AUD | SHORT | -1.0% · 5d -0.3% | 63% | 19 | 0.20 | ✓ matches cascade |
| INR INR | SHORT | -0.5% · 5d +0.0% ↺ fades | 61% | 19 | 0.18 | ✓ matches cascade |
| KRW KRW | LONG | +0.0% · 5d -0.3% ↺ fades | 61% | 19 | 0.18 | ⚠ differs |
| KWEB KWEB | SHORT | -1.6% · 5d -0.8% | 62% | 18 | 0.18 | ✓ matches cascade |
| GBPUSD GBPUSD | LONG | +0.1% · 5d -0.1% ↺ fades | 61% | 19 | 0.17 | ⚠ differs |
Why this probability
SWIFT cutoff of a major economy is rare and escalatory; low base rate. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.