What if the best-funded fusion startup collapses?
A flagship fusion failure chills frontier-energy/AI capex sentiment; the tradable leg is semis lower with NVDA the bellwether and Micron/Broadcom the high-beta sleeve. Closest rhyme is the Jan-2025 DeepSeek selloff, which knocked the AI-capex complex on a demand-assumption re-rate. Skeptical: fusion is not in any 2026 power balance, so spillover is pure risk-appetite; the dip is shallow and likely bought unless it coincides with a broader capex-air-pocket.
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 best-funded fusion venture folds after a failed scale-up, chilling investment across the entire sector. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — AI capex ▼ · Risk appetite ▼ — 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 | Nvidia NVDAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.1% hist -1.73–+0.06% · other way +4.26% (n=12) |
| 2 | Broadcom AVGOon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.9% hist -0.73–+0.09% · other way +6.0% (n=12) |
| 3 | Micron MUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.8% hist -2.4–+0.37% · other way -0.9% (n=12) |
| 4 | Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.7% hist -0.49–-0.22% · other way +1.68% (n=12) |
| 5 | Solana SOLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -0.7% hist -3.6–+0.83% · other way -16.06% (n=11) |
| 6 | MicroStrategy MSTRon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.7% hist -2.32–+4.49% · other way +8.02% (n=12) |
| 7 | Hyperliquid (HYPE) HYPEon Hyperliquid | Crypto | ▼ -0.6% model prior · unmeasured |
| 8 | Ether ETHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -0.5% hist -6.33–+1.95% · other way +0.31% (n=11) |
| 9 | Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -0.4% hist -0.74–+0.06% · other way +0.08% (n=12) |
| 10 | AMD AMDon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.5% hist -0.32–-0.11% · other way -2.83% (n=12) |
| 11 | TSMC TSMon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.5% hist -0.46–+0.31% · other way +2.02% (n=12) |
| 12 | Marvell MRVLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.5% hist -0.49–+0.56% · other way +0.14% (n=12) |
| 13 | Bitcoin BTCon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -0.4% hist -2.55–+0.7% · other way +3.03% (n=12) |
| 14 | Volatility (VIX) VIXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Vol | ▲ +0.4% hist -0.96–+3.53% · other way -3.52% (n=12) |
Probable recommendation
Why we may diverge from history
Trust the cascade short on HYG: +1.1% over n=11 is flat, and the analogues are chip-selloffs (Nvidia, TSMC, DeepSeek) off the credit channel — a fusion collapse chilling capital is credit-risk history can't proxy.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MU MU | SHORT | -1.8% · 5d -2.7% | 64% | 40 | 0.21 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Volatility VIX | LONG | +3.0% · 5d -0.2% ↺ fades | 62% | 40 | 0.20 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Gold XAU | LONG | +1.0% · 5d -0.5% ↺ fades | 62% | 40 | 0.20 | · |
| SOL SOL | SHORT | -3.0% · 5d -5.5% | 63% | 38 | 0.19 | ✓ matches cascade |
| ETH ETH | SHORT | -5.6% · 5d -4.1% | 61% | 39 | 0.16 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AMD AMD | SHORT | -0.1% · 5d -2.0% | 60% | 40 | 0.16 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Bitcoin BTC | SHORT | -2.2% · 5d -1.8% | 61% | 39 | 0.16 | ✓ matches cascade |
| NVDA NVDA | SHORT | -1.1% · 5d -3.5% | 60% | 40 | 0.15 | ✓ matches cascade |
| MRVL MRVL | LONG | +0.8% · 5d -1.5% ↺ fades | 57% | 40 | 0.10 | ⚠ differs |
| QCOM QCOM | SHORT | -2.9% · 5d -3.1% | 57% | 40 | 0.10 | ✓ matches cascade |
| MSTR MSTR | LONG | +4.7% · 5d -0.9% ↺ fades | 55% | 40 | 0.09 | ⚠ differs |
| NDX NDX | SHORT | -0.5% · 5d -1.2% | 57% | 40 | 0.09 | ✓ matches cascade |
| XLK XLK | SHORT | -0.3% · 5d -0.8% | 55% | 40 | 0.07 | ✓ matches cascade |
| TSM TSM | LONG | +0.5% · 5d -0.6% ↺ fades | 53% | 40 | 0.05 | ⚠ differs |
Why this probability
Best-funded fusion venture folding is a specific rare event; sector still well-capitalized mid-2026. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.