Central Banks & Macro risk-off · 6–18 months
A what‑if from the future

What if Bulgaria's euro adoption sparks an inflation backlash?

Post-adoption price surge plus a snap election threatens Bulgaria's lev peg credibility and convergence trades; the read is wider Bulgarian sovereign spreads and BGN forward stress, not a global inflation shock. The template is Croatia/Baltics post-euro 'perceived inflation' anger that stayed political, not systemic. Using gold-1980 and Ukraine-invasion analogues badly overstates it. The inflation_surprise root mis-frames a localized convergence-credibility event as a broad CPI shock dragging in US tech.

20%
our model probability
over 6–18 months
prediction markets — the market's odds
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Anchored to measured history 20% · 90% range 10–30% · 40 dated precedents behind it — a wider range means thinner evidence

Every number ships with its receipt — the odds, the range, the precedents, and a public grade at Reality Check. The statistical machinery that produces it is proprietary.

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 (electric blue) over time vs the market's (Polymarket, amber), from the past toward the 6–18 months 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. Loading the probability audit trail…

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What it would mean

If this plays out, it is a risk-off shock. Post-adoption price surge fuels nationalist protests and a snap election, threatening Sofia's reform agenda and convergence-trade positioning. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Credit spreads ▲ · EM currencies ▼ · Geopolitical risk ▲ · Risk appetite ▼ — which propagate through our causal graph to the markets below.

Methodology. Probability and impact are anchored to history and scored against what actually happens — wins and losses, in public, at Reality Check. Market odds live from Polymarket & Kalshi. By Vikas Singh, Quantitative Strategist. Updated 2026-08-13.