Bitcoin could be your only liferaft as Bank of England experts brace for alien disclosure chaos
Bitcoin could emerge as a long-term winner if international authorities verify the existence of non-human intelligence, even when the fast fallout triggers a extreme monetary shock.
Over the weekend, reports emerged that Helen McCaw, a former senior analyst on the Bank of England, urged Governor Andrew Bailey to think about contingency planning for a state of affairs through which the US authorities, or one other credible authority, releases definitive proof that humanity shouldn’t be alone.
In her evaluation, the chance is not only market chaos. It is a fast-moving confidence shock that could propagate from asset costs into the plumbing of on a regular basis life, potentially causing bank runs, cost disruptions, and, within the worst case, civil dysfunction.
Ontological shock
McCaw anchors her case in “ontological shock,” a time period more and more utilized in threat circles to explain the destabilizing results of an abrupt shift in shared actuality.
In this state of affairs, collective psychological disorientation interprets instantly into materials financial outcomes.
McCaw, in a Sol Foundation white paper, argued that this example could result in a monetary instability channel.
She wrote that if UAP (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena) disclosure implies a “energy and intelligence larger than any authorities,” it could undermine the legitimacy and belief that markets and banking programs depend on in silence.
According to her:
“Confirmation, and even widespread hypothesis, that new applied sciences exist would be an exogenous shock to international monetary markets. The human response could have fast ramifications in these markets, whether or not as a consequence of hypothesis or new information.”
Given these stakes, she argues the Bank of England should “take motion” to handle disclosure-related monetary stability dangers.
While the premise resembles science fiction, the cultural context has shifted over the past year.
For context, US lawmakers, together with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, are more and more calling for authorities transparency concerning UAP.
However, the possibilities of such a disclosure anytime quickly seem slim regardless of high-level political engagement. On Polymarket, a crypto prediction market platform, a contract titled “Will the US verify that aliens exist earlier than 2027?” trades at roughly 13 cents, implying a 13% chance.
Nonetheless, McCaw’s pitch is basically that the rising institutional consideration and the high-impact penalties of any such affirmation justify planning forward.
Against that backdrop, CryptoSlate has modeled how an “ontological shock” state of affairs would probably play out for Bitcoin.
Short-term impact
If this tail occasion strikes, the fast query for traders is: What breaks first?
McCaw raises the chance that the general public may rotate towards digital currencies like Bitcoin in the event that they “query the legitimacy of authorities” and lose belief in sovereign belongings.
However, market mechanics counsel a unique preliminary response. Alien disclosure is essentially an uncertainty shock, and uncertainty shocks commerce in two distinct phases.
In Phase 1, which could final from hours to days, the market faces a “promote what you may” downside.
In the primary window after a high-credibility, reality-rewriting announcement, markets often don’t behave like rational discounting machines. They behave like threat managers and margin clerks.
Three causes counsel Bitcoin is weak instantly, even when it later advantages from a “mistrust hedge” narrative.
First, Bitcoin is liquid 24/7, which makes it the primary stress valve. When equities are closed, and headlines hit, crypto is the place international merchants can immediately lower publicity. That makes BTC a frequent supply of “prompt liquidity,” not an computerized protected haven.
Second, correlations rise when everybody de-risks collectively.
The IMF has repeatedly documented that crypto and equity markets have turn out to be extra interconnected. This implies that market spillovers in returns and volatility can improve, particularly round stress episodes, undermining diversification whenever you want it most.
Third, volatility shouldn’t be priced for civilization-scale surprises.
As of mid-January 2026, the VIX (one of the market’s most-watched measures of implied US fairness volatility) has been within the mid-teens. If disclosure reprices volatility upward sharply, threat limits tighten, VaR (Value at Risk) shocks ripple, and levered positions unwind.
In these moments, “digital gold” narratives typically lose to “scale back gross publicity now.”
Put bluntly, the primary transfer is more likely to be risk-off, and Bitcoin will be handled as high beta by many macro desks.
Long-term implications for gold and Bitcoin
It is only in Phase 2, lasting weeks to months, that the commerce may shift to the “belief premium” McCaw envisions.
After the primary scramble, the query adjustments from “what’s liquid?” to “what’s authentic?”
If affirmation of non-human intelligence is interpreted as proof that governments weren’t totally clear or not totally in management, then a bit of the general public and investor base could begin demanding belongings that really feel much less tied to state credibility.
That is the place Bitcoin can plausibly transfer from “offered for liquidity” to “purchased for exit optionality.”
In this case, the disclosure would set off sustained distrust in institutions, which could drive some traders to hunt an asset that’s borderless, self-custodiable, and never a declare on any financial institution.
If capital controls or emergency measures turn out to be half of the political response, even briefly, the “censorship-resistance” narrative turns into greater than branding. It turns into a risk-management characteristic.
However, McCaw raises a vital level concerning traditional safe havens like gold.
She means that if markets speculate that spacefaring capabilities could broaden the provision of valuable metals (by way of asteroid mining or new materials sciences), gold’s scarcity narrative faces a theoretical problem.
In that context, Bitcoin faces no such bodily threat as its shortage is mathematically enforced. Essentially, the highest crypto protocol’s 21 million exhausting cap stays immutable.
So, in a world the place the bodily constraints of the universe are out of the blue up for debate, the inflexible, unyielding certainty of Bitcoin’s code could command a large premium.
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