What if Putin's sudden death sparks a struggle over Russia's nukes?
Putin's sudden death is a dual vol-plus-oil-supply shock: Brent leads WTI higher on a war/loose-nukes premium, VIX spikes, and energy-driven breakevens lift inflation expectations. Direct analogue is the Feb-2022 Ukraine invasion (Brent through $100, broad risk-off). Transmission: Russia is ~10% of global oil and a key gas supplier to residual buyers (India, China). Forward angle: a chaotic succession over the nuclear arsenal is a fatter geopolitical tail than the invasion itself — the oil premium could persist rather than fade, unlike a contained conflict.
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. Vladimir Putin suddenly dies, throwing Russia into a power struggle over its nuclear arsenal. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Geopolitical risk ▲ · Oil supply risk ▲ — 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 | ▲ +12.6% hist +2.23–+9.6% · other way -0.36% (n=12) |
| 2 | Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -4.9% hist -2.51–-0.98% · other way -0.34% (n=12) |
| 3 | Tech sector XLK 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -3.5% hist -2.04–-1.03% · other way -0.15% (n=12) |
| 4 | S&P 500 SPXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -2.7% hist -1.84–-0.95% · other way +1.22% (n=12) |
| 5 | Brent crude BRENTon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +2.4% hist -0.85–+1.68% · other way -3.03% (n=12) |
| 6 | WTI crude CLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +1.9% hist -5.06–+1.53% · other way -2.56% (n=12) |
| 7 | Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.2% hist -1.55–-0.67% · other way +1.95% (n=12) |
| 8 | MicroStrategy MSTRon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.1% hist -3.11–+3.62% · other way +31.53% (n=12) |
| 9 | Solana SOLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -1.4% hist -1.92–+1.01% · other way -3.0% (n=12) |
| 10 | Energy sector XLEon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▲ +1.4% hist -0.3–+0.9% · other way -1.36% (n=12) |
| 11 | Nvidia NVDAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.7% hist -2.88–+0.16% · other way +3.19% (n=12) |
| 12 | Bitcoin BTCon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -1.2% hist -6.45–+1.58% · other way +7.71% (n=12) |
| 13 | Gold XAUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +1.1% hist +0.3–+0.85% · other way -0.22% (n=12) |
| 14 | AMD AMDon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.5% hist -2.16–-0.01% · other way -0.61% (n=12) |
Probable recommendation
Why we may diverge from history
Trust the cascade long on CL/BRENT: history's -6.9%/-5.2% is regime-wrong — the analogues are OPEC market-share/price-war windows (2014, 2020 supply gluts); a Putin-death nuclear scare is a bullish supply-risk premium, not a glut.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| COIN COIN | LONG | +12.0% · 5d +3.5% | 77% | 12 | 0.47 | ⚠ differs |
| CL CL | SHORT | -4.9% · 5d -2.6% | 70% | 25 | 0.36 | ⚠ differs |
| CNY CNY | SHORT | -0.6% · 5d -0.1% | 69% | 25 | 0.36 | ✓ matches cascade |
| NDX NDX | SHORT | -0.6% · 5d -0.9% | 72% | 32 | 0.34 | ✓ matches cascade |
| MU MU | SHORT | -4.2% · 5d -4.8% | 70% | 32 | 0.31 | ✓ matches cascade |
| MRVL MRVL | SHORT | -1.2% · 5d -3.4% | 70% | 25 | 0.30 | ✓ matches cascade |
| INTC INTC | SHORT | -3.6% · 5d -2.3% | 68% | 36 | 0.30 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Volatility VIX | LONG | +3.6% · 5d +4.5% | 66% | 29 | 0.29 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AMD AMD | SHORT | -1.3% · 5d -0.8% | 69% | 36 | 0.29 | ✓ matches cascade |
| NVDA NVDA | SHORT | -1.9% · 5d -4.8% | 62% | 26 | 0.21 | ✓ matches cascade |
| ETH ETH | SHORT | -4.6% · 5d -3.9% | 65% | 17 | 0.21 | ✓ matches cascade |
| SOL SOL | LONG | +1.8% · 5d -5.2% ↺ fades | 65% | 12 | 0.19 | ⚠ differs |
| High-yield credit HYG | SHORT | -0.6% · 5d -0.1% | 62% | 22 | 0.19 | ✓ matches cascade |
| LMT LMT | LONG | +3.4% · 5d +0.7% | 60% | 40 | 0.19 | ✓ matches cascade |
Why this probability
Putin (73) age/health risk gives modest base rate; succession-over-nukes framing speculative. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.