What if a high-altitude nuclear EMP fries a continent's electronics?
A high-altitude EMP frying a continent's electronics is a maximal risk-off: VIX explodes, Nasdaq and high-beta crypto are dumped, gold and Treasuries are the only refuge — but it is also a war act, so the dominant driver is geopolitical escalation, not market microstructure. There is no clean modern analogue (1962 Starfish Prime is the physics, not the market test); treat as a portfolio-destroying tail to hedge convexly. The deleveraging cascade understates that, in an EMP zone, settlement itself fails — a risk no equity hedge fully covers.
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 Tail risk 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 high-altitude nuclear EMP fries electronics across a continent, collapsing power, comms and finance over a vast area. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Geopolitical risk ▲ · 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 | Volatility (VIX) VIXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Vol | ▲ +17.4% hist +3.79–+12.68% · other way +3.23% (n=12) |
| 2 | Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -7.8% hist -3.8–-1.99% · other way -0.37% (n=12) |
| 3 | Tech sector XLK 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -5.4% hist -3.05–-1.38% · other way -0.34% (n=12) |
| 4 | S&P 500 SPXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -4.3% hist -2.33–-1.38% · other way +0.57% (n=12) |
| 5 | MicroStrategy MSTRon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -4.5% hist -3.57–+1.52% · other way +26.92% (n=12) |
| 6 | Solana SOLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -4.0% hist -4.37–-0.39% · other way +0.89% (n=12) |
| 7 | Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -3.8% hist -2.11–-0.47% · other way +2.23% (n=12) |
| 8 | Hyperliquid (HYPE) HYPEon Hyperliquid | Crypto | ▼ -3.0% model prior · unmeasured |
| 9 | Ether ETHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -2.7% hist -10.33–+0.76% · other way +5.13% (n=12) |
| 10 | Bitcoin BTCon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -2.5% hist -5.83–+0.84% · other way +5.17% (n=12) |
| 11 | Nvidia NVDAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.8% hist -2.12–-0.65% · other way +4.75% (n=12) |
| 12 | Gold XAUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +2.1% hist +0.13–+2.53% · other way -0.6% (n=12) |
| 13 | AMD AMDon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.5% hist -2.18–-0.36% · other way -0.48% (n=12) |
| 14 | Broadcom AVGOon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.5% hist -1.79–+3.27% · other way +0.88% (n=12) |
Probable recommendation
Why we may diverge from history
Trust the cascade short on COIN/MSTR: every up-analogue (Israel-Iran +63%, tariff peaks +65%) lands inside the 2024-25 BTC structural bull, so realized prints are regime, not an EMP grid-collapse shock.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ETH ETH | SHORT | -7.7% · 5d -6.4% | 75% | 24 | 0.37 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AVGO AVGO | LONG | +3.8% · 5d -0.6% ↺ fades | 65% | 28 | 0.29 | ⚠ differs |
| INTC INTC | SHORT | -2.5% · 5d -2.5% | 65% | 34 | 0.28 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AMD AMD | SHORT | -1.0% · 5d -0.6% | 67% | 34 | 0.26 | ✓ matches cascade |
| NDX NDX | SHORT | -0.3% · 5d -1.0% | 66% | 33 | 0.24 | ✓ matches cascade |
| TRY TRY | SHORT | -0.8% · 5d +1.1% ↺ fades | 68% | 28 | 0.24 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Gold XAU | LONG | +1.4% · 5d -0.3% ↺ fades | 64% | 29 | 0.23 | ✓ matches cascade |
| MU MU | SHORT | -3.9% · 5d -2.7% | 64% | 33 | 0.23 | ✓ matches cascade |
| INR INR | SHORT | -0.3% · 5d +0.1% ↺ fades | 65% | 28 | 0.23 | ✓ matches cascade |
| CNY CNY | SHORT | -0.3% · 5d -0.1% | 62% | 29 | 0.23 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Volatility VIX | LONG | +3.8% · 5d +3.0% | 61% | 31 | 0.20 | ✓ matches cascade |
| High-yield credit HYG | SHORT | -0.4% · 5d -0.1% | 62% | 28 | 0.19 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Bitcoin BTC | SHORT | -4.2% · 5d -3.6% | 61% | 27 | 0.16 | ✓ matches cascade |
| SOL SOL | SHORT | -2.2% · 5d -8.1% | 62% | 21 | 0.15 | ✓ matches cascade |
Why this probability
Continent-scale nuclear EMP unprecedented; requires nuclear use; deepest tail risk. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.