What if a cyberattack blacks out Europe's power grid?
A multi-day European grid blackout is a contained-confidence shock: VIX +10, a shallow Nasdaq/S&P dip, with the real bid in European power/gas via the energy-security channel. No clean market analogue — closest is the Apr-2025 Iberian blackout, which barely moved broad indices but spiked local power prices. Transmission: the hit concentrates in European industrials and utilities (input-cost and downtime), not US tech; the durable trade is long EU power/gas and short exposed manufacturers — the global beta move fades within days absent escalation.
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 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. 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. A cyber-physical attack blacks out a major European power grid for days. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Geopolitical risk ▲ · European energy ▲ — 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 | ▲ +10.0% hist +2.0–+7.4% · other way -9.61% (n=12) |
| 2 | Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -3.7% hist -2.28–-0.69% · other way +0.27% (n=12) |
| 3 | Tech sector XLK 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.5% hist -1.53–-0.83% · other way +0.29% (n=12) |
| 4 | S&P 500 SPXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -2.1% hist -1.73–-0.57% · other way +0.66% (n=12) |
| 5 | Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.8% hist -1.42–-0.47% · other way -0.2% (n=12) |
| 6 | MicroStrategy MSTRon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.5% hist -2.01–+1.93% · other way +11.86% (n=12) |
| 7 | Gold XAUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +1.1% hist +0.21–+0.81% · other way +0.74% (n=12) |
| 8 | Nvidia NVDAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.3% hist -3.1–+0.3% · other way -0.32% (n=12) |
| 9 | Solana SOLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -0.9% hist -3.96–+6.64% · other way -1.88% (n=11) |
| 10 | AMD AMDon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.2% hist -3.08–+0.29% · other way -2.12% (n=12) |
| 11 | Broadcom AVGOon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.2% hist -1.03–+0.23% · other way -0.29% (n=11) |
| 12 | Micron MUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.2% hist -3.88–+0.73% · other way +8.9% (n=12) |
| 13 | TSMC TSMon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.2% hist -2.94–+0.37% · other way +1.36% (n=12) |
| 14 | Marvell MRVLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.2% hist -3.33–+0.23% · other way +2.99% (n=12) |
Probable recommendation
Why we may diverge from history
Trust the cascade short on NVDA/SMH/AVGO: a European grid cyberattack is second-order to AI-capex, which dominates these names — their faint +1-4% history is the AI bull regime, not this channel.
Historical precedent — what analogous events actually did
Across 40 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MRVL MRVL | SHORT | -2.4% · 5d -3.0% | 73% | 31 | 0.34 | ✓ matches cascade |
| NDX NDX | SHORT | -0.7% · 5d -0.8% | 72% | 38 | 0.33 | ✓ matches cascade |
| COIN COIN | LONG | +9.0% · 5d +2.2% | 69% | 15 | 0.31 | ⚠ differs |
| AMD AMD | SHORT | -2.2% · 5d -1.3% | 69% | 39 | 0.29 | ✓ matches cascade |
| NVDA NVDA | SHORT | -2.2% · 5d -4.6% | 66% | 32 | 0.26 | ✓ matches cascade |
| JPM JPM | LONG | +2.3% · 5d +0.0% | 64% | 39 | 0.24 | ⚠ differs |
| Volatility VIX | LONG | +2.5% · 5d +2.5% | 64% | 35 | 0.23 | ✓ matches cascade |
| TSM TSM | SHORT | -2.1% · 5d -3.2% | 64% | 33 | 0.22 | ✓ matches cascade |
| QCOM QCOM | SHORT | -2.1% · 5d -1.7% | 63% | 33 | 0.21 | ✓ matches cascade |
| INR INR | SHORT | -0.3% · 5d +0.1% ↺ fades | 63% | 28 | 0.20 | ✓ matches cascade |
| MU MU | SHORT | -3.0% · 5d -4.1% | 62% | 38 | 0.19 | ✓ matches cascade |
| SOL SOL | LONG | +7.1% · 5d -4.1% ↺ fades | 62% | 16 | 0.17 | ⚠ differs |
| LMT LMT | LONG | +2.8% · 5d +0.1% | 60% | 40 | 0.17 | ✓ matches cascade |
| INTC INTC | SHORT | -2.8% · 5d -1.7% | 60% | 39 | 0.17 | ✓ matches cascade |
Why this probability
Multi-day grid blackout from cyberattack never achieved at scale; probes common, success rare; 18mo. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.