What if Russia detonates a tactical nuke in Ukraine?
A battlefield tactical-nuclear use shatters the post-1945 taboo, triggering a global flight to safety with gold and the dollar surging and risk assets gapping lower.
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 6–18 months 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 battlefield tactical-nuclear use shatters the post-1945 taboo, triggering a global flight to safety with gold and the dollar surging and risk assets gapping lower. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Volatility (VIX) ▲ · Gold ▲ · 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 | ▲ +12.5% hist +3.69–+8.26% · other way +3.23% (n=12) |
| 2 | Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -5.3% hist -3.4–-1.87% · other way -0.37% (n=12) |
| 3 | Tech sector XLK 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -3.6% hist -2.46–-0.89% · other way -0.34% (n=12) |
| 4 | S&P 500 SPXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -3.0% hist -2.3–-0.89% · other way +0.57% (n=12) |
| 5 | MicroStrategy MSTRon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.9% hist -2.79–+1.83% · other way +26.92% (n=12) |
| 6 | Solana SOLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -2.4% hist -5.06–+2.14% · other way +0.89% (n=12) |
| 7 | Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -2.5% hist -1.43–+0.06% · other way +2.23% (n=12) |
| 8 | Gold XAUon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Commodity | ▲ +2.0% hist +0.03–+2.71% · other way -0.6% (n=12) |
| 9 | Hyperliquid (HYPE) HYPEon Hyperliquid | Crypto | ▼ -1.8% model prior · unmeasured |
| 10 | Ether ETHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -1.6% hist -7.98–+2.99% · other way +5.13% (n=12) |
| 11 | Bitcoin BTCon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -1.6% hist -1.89–-0.19% · other way +5.17% (n=12) |
| 12 | Nvidia NVDAon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.8% hist -1.19–-0.56% · other way +4.75% (n=12) |
| 13 | AMD AMDon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.6% hist -1.51–-0.23% · other way -0.48% (n=12) |
| 14 | Broadcom AVGOon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -1.6% hist -1.61–+3.4% · other way +0.88% (n=12) |
Probable recommendation
Historical precedent — what analogous events actually did
Across 36 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 | +15.8% · 5d +4.1% | 76% | 8 | 0.48 | ⚠ differs |
| INR INR | SHORT | -0.4% · 5d +0.1% ↺ fades | 65% | 24 | 0.26 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AVGO AVGO | LONG | +3.7% · 5d +0.0% | 64% | 22 | 0.25 | ⚠ differs |
| ETH ETH | SHORT | -6.9% · 5d -7.1% | 66% | 14 | 0.24 | ✓ matches cascade |
| RTX RTX | SHORT | -1.2% · 5d -1.2% | 63% | 32 | 0.22 | ⚠ differs |
| NOC NOC | LONG | +0.8% · 5d +0.0% | 61% | 29 | 0.19 | ✓ matches cascade |
| TRY TRY | SHORT | -0.5% · 5d +1.4% ↺ fades | 63% | 24 | 0.19 | ✓ matches cascade |
| Gold XAU | LONG | +1.6% · 5d -0.1% ↺ fades | 60% | 25 | 0.18 | ✓ matches cascade |
| AMD AMD | SHORT | -0.7% · 5d -0.2% | 62% | 30 | 0.17 | ✓ matches cascade |
| MU MU | SHORT | -3.5% · 5d -0.9% | 61% | 29 | 0.17 | ✓ matches cascade |
| INTC INTC | SHORT | -1.0% · 5d -1.1% | 60% | 30 | 0.17 | ✓ matches cascade |
| SMH SMH | LONG | +0.9% · 5d +0.2% | 60% | 25 | 0.16 | ⚠ differs |
| QCOM QCOM | SHORT | -1.8% · 5d -0.8% | 62% | 26 | 0.16 | ✓ matches cascade |
| USDJPY USDJPY | LONG | +0.6% · 5d -0.0% ↺ fades | 58% | 26 | 0.13 | ⚠ differs |