Institutional guardrails hold as the Supreme Court shields Fed independence, while a fragile US-Iran de-escalation pulls oil lower and eases spike risk — even as Iran's currency and streets stay under inflation stress. Meanwhile confrontation grinds on at the edges: Russian energy-cyber retaliation against Ukraine, armed shadow-fleet tankers in the Baltic, and tightening tech decoupling across Europe and East Asia.

Under ~90% inflation and war-driven FX pressure, a 10% depreciation over a quarter is well within Iran's established pattern — the rial has repeatedly lost double-digit percentages in single quarters during sanctions/inflation shocks. The Skeptic's 0.65 is defensible; because my economics forecasts run ~7pp UNDER, I nudge to 0.70. The main uncertainty is measurement (official vs. open-market rate) and the possibility that a US-Iran diplomatic thaw (see the follow-on-talks forecast) stabilizes sentiment — but even a partial thaw rarely reverses inflation-driven depreciation within 90 days. Bayesian/Psychohistory pillars: high inflation reliably transmits to currency in this regime.