What if Washington and Beijing freeze each other's sovereign assets?
Mutual sovereign-asset freezes weaponize finance: this is the rare risk-off that lifts long-end Treasury yields (10y/30y +10bp) as reserve demand fades, while gold +4% and semis -5%. The template is the 2022 freezing of Russia's reserves, which durably accelerated de-dollarization and central-bank gold buying. Transmission: China dumping or being locked out of USTs is the tail. Forward angle: unlike 2022, the counterparty holds ~$700bn+ of Treasuries, so the bond-market feedback loop is the real systemic risk, not equities.
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. Washington and Beijing freeze each other's sovereign assets, weaponizing finance in a decoupling spiral. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Dollar/reserve confidence ▼ · Geopolitical risk ▲ · Trade tension ▲ — 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 | ▲ +12.9% hist +3.41–+10.61% · other way +3.23% (n=12) |
| 2 | Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -8.0% hist -4.7–-2.58% · other way -0.37% (n=12) |
| 3 | Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -5.3% hist -3.31–-1.96% · other way +2.23% (n=12) |
| 4 | Tech sector XLK 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -5.6% hist -3.34–-1.78% · other way -0.34% (n=12) |
| 5 | Gold XAUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +4.3% hist +1.12–+3.18% · other way -0.6% (n=12) |
| 6 | Nvidia NVDAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -4.3% hist -2.55–-1.14% · other way +4.75% (n=12) |
| 7 | TSMC TSMon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -4.0% hist -4.38–-0.52% · other way +2.51% (n=12) |
| 8 | S&P 500 SPXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -3.4% hist -2.18–-1.21% · other way +0.57% (n=12) |
| 9 | AMD AMDon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -3.6% hist -2.25–-0.85% · other way -0.48% (n=12) |
| 10 | Broadcom AVGOon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -3.6% hist -2.13–+0.51% · other way +0.88% (n=12) |
| 11 | Micron MUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -3.6% hist -5.69–+0.35% · other way +2.73% (n=12) |
| 12 | Marvell MRVLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -3.6% hist -3.08–-0.72% · other way +1.61% (n=12) |
| 13 | ASML ASMLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -3.2% hist -3.88–-0.23% · other way -1.68% (n=12) |
| 14 | Qualcomm QCOMon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.5% hist -2.85–-0.22% · other way -0.69% (n=12) |
Probable recommendation
Why we may diverge from history
Trust the cascade short on AVGO/TSM: their +10%/+2.4% history is one-regime 2025-Q2 tariff-relief clustering — a reciprocal sovereign-asset freeze is a finance-weaponization structural break those rebound windows 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| COIN COIN | LONG | +15.3% · 5d +5.4% | 78% | 8 | 0.45 | ✓ matches cascade |
| CNY CNY | SHORT | -0.7% · 5d -0.2% | 69% | 21 | 0.36 | ✓ matches cascade |
| ETH ETH | SHORT | -5.5% · 5d -7.6% | 67% | 15 | 0.26 | ✓ matches cascade |
| XCU XCU | SHORT | -1.0% · 5d +0.2% ↺ fades | 64% | 21 | 0.24 | ✓ matches cascade |
| KWEB KWEB | SHORT | -2.4% · 5d -1.3% | 63% | 19 | 0.22 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AMD AMD | SHORT | -0.5% · 5d -0.8% | 63% | 30 | 0.21 | ✓ matches cascade |
| High-yield credit HYG | SHORT | -0.6% · 5d -0.4% | 63% | 20 | 0.20 | ✓ matches cascade |
| XLF XLF | SHORT | -0.1% · 5d -0.1% | 62% | 21 | 0.20 | ✓ matches cascade |
| SOL SOL | LONG | +1.0% · 5d -10.6% ↺ fades | 67% | 8 | 0.20 | ⚠ differs |
| AVGO AVGO | LONG | +1.8% · 5d -2.1% ↺ fades | 60% | 20 | 0.19 | ⚠ differs |
| NVDA NVDA | SHORT | -0.4% · 5d -3.6% | 62% | 21 | 0.18 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AUD AUD | SHORT | -0.8% · 5d -0.2% | 60% | 20 | 0.16 | ✓ matches cascade |
| INTC INTC | SHORT | -1.4% · 5d -1.1% | 59% | 30 | 0.15 | ✓ matches cascade |
| MRVL MRVL | SHORT | -1.1% · 5d -2.3% | 58% | 21 | 0.11 | ✓ matches cascade |
Why this probability
Mutual sovereign-asset freeze is unprecedented nuclear-option finance; decoupling slow, very unlikely. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.