What if a stablecoin issuer loses its banking partner and breaks the peg?
A stablecoin issuer losing its banking partner strands fiat reserves and breaks the on/off-ramp, depegging the coin and dumping ETH/SOL/BTC as the dollar bridge fails. This is the March-2023 USDC/SVB episode and the 2018 Tether/Noble Bank scare in one — USDC depegged to $0.87 before First-Citizens/Fed action restored the ramp. Skeptic's note: contagion is intra-crypto; the equity/credit spillover is small — trade the depeg and crypto beta, not the S&P.
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 0–6 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. The banking partner of a major stablecoin issuer abruptly severs ties, stranding fiat reserves and breaking the on/off-ramp peg mechanism. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Credit spreads ▲ · Crypto confidence ▼ · 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 | MicroStrategy MSTRon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -9.2% hist -6.88–-1.66% · other way -7.85% (n=12) |
| 2 | Ether ETHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -8.0% hist -19.63–+5.12% · other way -6.7% (n=11) |
| 3 | Solana SOLon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -5.5% hist -15.44–+4.08% · other way -18.56% (n=11) |
| 4 | Bitcoin BTCon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Crypto | ▼ -5.1% hist -18.15–+4.09% · other way -5.65% (n=11) |
| 5 | Coinbase COINon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -3.6% hist -4.37–-1.25% · other way +2.5% (n=11) |
| 6 | Hyperliquid (HYPE) HYPEon Hyperliquid | Crypto | ▼ -2.5% model prior · unmeasured |
| 7 | Nasdaq 100 NDXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -0.9% hist -0.92–-0.18% · other way +0.57% (n=12) |
| 8 | Volatility (VIX) VIXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Vol | ▲ +0.7% hist -1.21–+3.37% · other way -2.32% (n=12) |
| 9 | High-yield credit HYG 📈 chart | Rate | ▼ -0.6% hist -0.54–-0.11% · other way +0.36% (n=12) |
| 10 | Tech sector XLK 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.7% hist -0.6–+0.39% · other way +1.07% (n=12) |
| 11 | S&P 500 SPXon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Index | ▼ -0.6% hist -0.29–+0.08% · other way -0.89% (n=12) |
| 12 | Financials XLF 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.5% hist -1.17–+0.17% · other way -0.94% (n=12) |
| 13 | JPMorgan JPM 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.4% hist -1.47–+0.16% · other way -0.21% (n=12) |
| 14 | Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chart | Equity | ▼ -0.4% hist -0.78–+2.5% · other way +2.32% (n=12) |
Probable recommendation
Why we may diverge from history
Trust the cascade short on BTC: n=6, all 2022-23 windows where a stablecoin depeg ironically pumped BTC as a bank-exit trade — a thin, regime-specific sample that won't repeat on an issuer banking cutoff.
Historical precedent — what analogous events actually did
Across 31 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin BTC | SHORT | -14.4% · 5d -8.8% | 82% | 11 | 0.59 | ✓ matches cascade |
| SOL SOL | SHORT | -11.9% · 5d -15.8% | 78% | 9 | 0.51 | ✓ matches cascade |
| ETH ETH | SHORT | -14.4% · 5d -11.7% | 70% | 10 | 0.36 | ✓ matches cascade |
| JPM JPM | SHORT | -1.1% · 5d -1.8% | 71% | 31 | 0.35 | ✓ matches cascade |
| SPX SPX | LONG | +0.3% · 5d -0.2% ↺ fades | 65% | 31 | 0.28 | ⚠ differs |
| SMH SMH | LONG | +2.3% · 5d -0.9% ↺ fades | 66% | 28 | 0.28 | ⚠ differs |
| MSTR MSTR | SHORT | -2.5% · 5d -4.9% | 66% | 28 | 0.27 | ✓ matches cascade |
| 10y yield DGS10 | SHORT | -18bp · 5d -9bp | 64% | 31 | 0.25 | · |
| XLF XLF | SHORT | -0.8% · 5d -1.1% | 61% | 28 | 0.19 | ✓ matches cascade |
| High-yield credit HYG | SHORT | -0.2% · 5d +0.1% ↺ fades | 58% | 26 | 0.13 | ✓ matches cascade |
| TSM TSM | LONG | +2.4% · 5d -2.0% ↺ fades | 58% | 28 | 0.12 | ⚠ differs |
| AVGO AVGO | LONG | +2.1% · 5d -1.1% ↺ fades | 56% | 20 | 0.11 | ⚠ differs |
| US dollar DXY | LONG | +0.4% · 5d +0.1% | 56% | 31 | 0.11 | · |
| QCOM QCOM | LONG | +0.3% · 5d -2.6% ↺ fades | 56% | 29 | 0.08 | ⚠ differs |
Why this probability
Post-USDC-SVB banking diversified; abrupt full cutoff less likely, but recurring banking risk. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.