The current situation is just one last push away from becoming a 'crisis trigger', but the trigger itself is already set, and there is more than one.

The key divergence is: the market is pricing in 'panic emotions', while the crisis requires 'forced deleveraging'. The former results in falling stock prices, while the latter forces assets to be sold at a discount— we are currently in a critical stage of moving from emotions to actual losses.

🔴 1. The 'known path' to evolving into a financial crisis (the trigger is in place)

This is not speculation; it is a weak link identified by authoritative institutions. Any one of them could trigger a response.

· Path A: Redemption wave → Discounted selling (the shortest route). Blue Owl has acknowledged that investors are seeking redemptions, with a certain technology BDC losing 15.4% of its net assets in one month. The iron law of crises: concentrated redemptions of illiquid assets = self-fulfilling selling spiral. Once a fund is forced to sell loans at a discount to pay off, the mark-to-market valuations of neighboring funds will instantly trigger write-downs across the entire industry.

· Path B: PIK interest snowballing (hidden landmines). Software companies hold the largest share of physical payment (PIK) loans. Borrowers are not paying cash now, and interest is being capitalized. This is not a get-out-of-jail-free card; it's a reprieve—by this time next year, creditors will find that the 'principal' has inflated, while companies have even less money, leading to a direct spike in default rates.

· Path C: Federal Reserve stress test spillover (credit freeze). The 2026 test assumes an unemployment rate of 10% and a 39% drop in commercial real estate, requiring banks to hold more capital. The result is: banks shrink their balance sheets, and companies are forced to turn to private credit, while private credit itself is also avoiding software exposure. A double squeeze could instantly freeze financing in the mid-market.

⚠️ 2. The real 'Black Swan' is not in technology, but in the system (this is the no man's land).

Black Swan—it's not AI, but a 'crisis response vacuum' that has never been tested since 2008.

Key fact: The nomination of Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh has been frozen due to Senator Tillis's firm opposition; current Chairman Powell's term ends in May.

Black Swan scenario: Assume a certain fund blew up in April—at that time the old chairman was preparing to leave, the new chairman couldn't come in, and Secretary of the Treasury Mnuchin was tied up with Trump's lawsuits. This is an unprecedented power vacuum in financial history. The image of Bernanke and Paulson meeting overnight to save the market in 2008 is now obsolete, with even the authorization chain being broken.

This is a classic case of 'unpredictable but deadly once it happens'—no one can predict that the political deadlock would happen to coincide with the week of the crisis outbreak.

🧩 3. Evidence of 'linked risks' already exists.

AI impacts credit, and multiple risks have already emerged:

· Cryptocurrency: Bitcoin has halved from its peak, but this time it's different—the banks have entered to sponsor crypto funds. In 2022, it was just retail investors facing liquidation, but now bank capital is involved.

· Private credit: A $30 trillion black box, with unknown leverage and zero regulation.

· The interaction of the three:

AI crushes software → Bad debts → Banks tighten credit → Cryptocurrency liquidity dries up → Panic → Further sell-off of software stocks. The closed loop has formed, and the death spiral has been initiated for some time; it's just that we ordinary people have an information gap.

📌 The market has already seen that card that hasn't been turned over yet.

Currently, this is not an immediate collapse like in 2008, because leverage hasn't hit the point where liquidation is necessary. But Moody's Zandi's statement 'it will be completely different in a year' is the real timer—large-scale software loans released in 2025-2026 will concentrate in maturity in 2027-2028. The crisis won't hit this week, but the crisis cycle has already begun.

As for the Black Swan: the scariest thing has never been the visible bad debts, but when a crisis occurs, the person who should be answering the phone is not at their desk.

Friends investing should be mentally prepared, and have several defense plans ready in advance...