Energy & Commodities mixed · 1–3 years
A what‑if from the future

What if Mexico bans all new open-pit mining?

A constitutional open-pit ban freezes Mexico's project pipeline — Mexico is the world's #1 silver producer (~25% of mine supply) and a top-10 copper source — so the trade is silver-curve backwardation and a bid in ex-Mexico miners, not a +0.3% Freeport wiggle. Rhymes with Panama's 2023 Cobre closure, which knocked ~1.5% off global copper supply and lifted the metal. Slow-burn (existing mines run), but it caps the silver-deficit narrative that drove the Oct-2025 squeeze past $50.

14%
our model probability
over 1–3 years
prediction markets — the market's odds
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Anchored to measured history 14% · 90% range 5–22% · 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 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. Loading the probability audit trail…

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What it would mean

If this plays out, it is a mixed shock. A constitutional reform prohibits new open-pit concessions, freezing silver and copper project pipelines nationwide. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Silver ▲ · Industrial demand ▲ — 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.