Bitcoin may emerge as a long-term winner if world authorities affirm the existence of non-human intelligence, even when the rapid results trigger extreme monetary shocks.
Over the weekend, stories emerged that Helen McCaw, a former senior analyst on the Financial institution of England, had urged Governor Andrew Bailey to contemplate contingency plans for a state of affairs during which the US authorities, or some other trusted authority, releases conclusive proof that humanity shouldn’t be alone.
In her evaluation, the danger goes past market disruption. This can be a fast confidence shock that might spill over from asset costs to the plumbing of on a regular basis life, disrupting installations and funds, and, within the worst case state of affairs, inflicting civil unrest.
ontological shock
McCaw bases his argument on “ontological shock.” The time period is more and more used within the threat trade to explain the destabilizing results of sudden modifications in shared actuality.
On this state of affairs, collective psychological disorientation leads on to materials financial penalties.
McCaw argued within the Sol Basis’s white paper that this case may result in a pathway to monetary instability.
She wrote that if disclosure of UAPs (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena) signifies “energy and intelligence higher than any authorities,” it may undermine the legitimacy and belief that markets and banking techniques silently depend on.
In keeping with her,
“Affirmation, and even hypothesis, {that a} new know-how exists will create an exogenous shock to world monetary markets. Human reactions, whether or not because of hypothesis or new info, can have a right away affect on these markets.”
Given these dangers, she argues that the Financial institution of England must “take motion” to handle the monetary stability dangers related to disclosure.
Though the premise is just like science fiction, the cultural context has modified over the previous yr.
By the use of background, U.S. lawmakers, together with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, are more and more calling for presidency transparency relating to UAPs.
Nonetheless, regardless of high-level political involvement, it appears unlikely that such data will probably be made public any time quickly. On Polymarket, a cryptocurrency prediction market platform, a deal titled “Will the USA Affirm the Existence of Aliens by 2027?” was signed. It’s buying and selling at about 13 cents, implying a 13% chance.
Nonetheless, McCaw’s argument is basically that the elevated consideration and high-impact penalties of such recognition throughout the group justify advance planning.
From such a background, crypto slate modeled how an “ontological shock” state of affairs would play out for Bitcoin.
brief time period impact
When this tail occasion happens, the rapid query for traders is: What’s going to break first?
McCaw raised the likelihood that if folks “query the legitimacy of their authorities” and lose belief in authorities property, they may flip to digital currencies like Bitcoin.
Nonetheless, market mechanics counsel a unique preliminary response. Alien publicity is basically an uncertainty shock, and uncertainty shocks commerce in two distinct phases.
In Part 1, which might final from a couple of hours to a couple days, the market faces the issue of “promoting what may be bought.”
Within the first interval after a dependable, reality-rewriting announcement, the market usually doesn’t behave like a rational low cost machine. They act like threat managers and margin takers.
Three causes counsel that Bitcoin is weak straight away, even when it later advantages from the “mistrust hedge” narrative.
First, Bitcoin is liquid 24/7, which is the primary stress valve. When inventory markets shut down and information headlines break, cryptocurrencies are the place merchants around the globe can immediately scale back their publicity. As such, BTC doesn’t robotically change into a protected haven, however a frequent supply of “prompt liquidity.”
Second, correlation will increase when everybody avoids threat collectively.
The IMF has repeatedly documented that the interconnection between crypto and inventory markets has change into stronger. Because of this market returns and volatility spillovers can improve, particularly throughout occasions of stress, and scale back diversification once you want it most.
Third, volatility doesn’t contain civilizational-scale surprises.
As of mid-January 2026, the VIX (one of the intently watched indicators of the implicit volatility of U.S. shares available in the market) is within the mid-10% vary. If volatility is revised upward sharply because of disclosure, threat limits will probably be tightened, VaR (worth in danger) shocks will unfold, and leveraged positions will probably be unwound.
In such moments, the “digital gold” narrative typically loses out when it comes to “scale back your whole publicity now.”
Frankly, the preliminary transfer is prone to be risk-off and Bitcoin will probably be handled as excessive beta by many macro desks.
Lengthy-term affect on gold and Bitcoin
It is solely in Part 2, which might final wherever from a couple of weeks to a couple months, that buying and selling strikes into what McCaw envisions as a “belief premium.”
After the preliminary scramble, the query modifications from “What’s a liquid?” “What’s authorized?”
If affirmation of non-human intelligence is interpreted as proof that governments should not absolutely clear or in management, sections of the general public and investor class might start to demand property which are much less intently related to state credibility.
That’s the place Bitcoin may plausibly transition from “bought for liquidity” to “purchased for exit choices.”
On this case, this disclosure may create an enduring distrust of monetary establishments, forcing some traders to hunt property which are borderless, self-custodial, and can’t be claimed by any financial institution.
As soon as capital controls and emergency measures change into a part of the political response, even for a brief time frame, the narrative of “censorship resistance” turns into extra than simply branding. It turns into a threat administration perform.
However McCaw makes an essential level about conventional safe-haven property like gold.
She means that the gold shortage narrative will face theoretical challenges if the market assumes that spaceflight capabilities may increase the availability of the dear steel (by way of asteroid mining or new supplies science).
In that context, Bitcoin faces no such bodily dangers as a result of its shortage is mathematically enforced. Primarily, the 21 million exhausting cap for high crypto protocols stays unchanged.
Due to this fact, in a world the place the bodily constraints of the universe are immediately up for debate, the inflexible and unwavering certainty of Bitcoin’s code may command an enormous premium.
