The path forward following the Silicon Valley Bank fiasco looks pretty binary. One of two things will probably happen this week.

I expect markets will have a pretty good idea about which is more likely by late Sunday evening, so I won’t spend too much time detailing the alternative realities, but I did want to present the juxtaposition.

In one reality, the US government either i) finds a buyer for SVB (the commercial bank part of it), ii) facilitates the sale of its uninsured deposits or the provision of liquidity to its clients by some consortium of investors, iii) sells enough of SVB’s assets to return the vast majority of the uninsured deposits immediately, iv) guarantees those deposits outright citing exigent circumstances, moral hazard be damned or v) announces plans to backstop uninsured deposits at other lenders for the duration of the SVB resolution process.

Hedge funds and distressed debt investors were circling over the weekend, offering to buy deposits for as little as 60 cents on the dollar. If that sounds ruthless to you, that’s because it is. The idea is simple: Some of SVB’s uninsured depositors need money now, so you give them access to 60% (or 75% or 80%) and then, if the FDIC eventually recovers 95%, the spread is your profit.

Meanwhile, the FDIC was rushing to sell assets in order to provide an immediate payout of a portion of the uninsured deposits, but the percentages bandied about (between 30% and 50%) weren’t likely to be adequate to assuage concerns among depositors at other lenders, even if the lifelines would be sufficient for the impacted firms to fund operations this week. Tellingly, the Fed was working with the FDIC on a contingency plan to announce an SPV that backstops deposits at other banks in order to avert runs.

That’s a good segue into the second reality. If this process is allowed to run its course with no additional intervention beyond i) the protection of insured depositors, ii) FDIC efforts to speed sales of assets to return money to uninsured depositors as quickly as possible (but only as quickly as possible, as opposed to “Right now! We’ve gotta sell this stuff right now!”) and iii) private capital and other banks going through the motions, there will almost surely be runs on other banks and, in all likelihood, there will be instances of collapsing share prices and, probably, more bank failures.

It occurred to me over the weekend while reading emails and responses to other articles (and not just my articles) that most observers, regardless of age and experience, aren’t looking at this situation from the perspective of the firms and depositors with uninsured money at banks not called JPMorgan, Bank of America or Citi. Goldman and Morgan Stanley have money too, and that’s safe, and there are a number of other very large banks where the risk to uninsured deposits is de minimis. But outside of those banks, psychology is likely to be very poor this week if SVB’s uninsured depositors aren’t made whole (or mostly whole) immediately.

Let me put it this way: If you have more than $250,000 at a bank that you’ve only heard of because of your circumstances (e.g., because of your industry or geographical location), you’re probably going to want that money back now, so that you can go try to put it in the vault of Dimon or in a lockbox in Brian Moynihan’s closet. This is real money, belonging to real firms and people. They’re not going to sit around and go mine-hunting in a 10-K. And they’re not going to be comforted by news of, say, a 50% advance from the FDIC to SVB’s uninsured depositors. Don’t delude yourself: A lot of depositors are going to pull their money and put it in JPMorgan or in Treasury bills.

In addition, it’s important to note that Americans aren’t exactly known for literacy these days, and particularly not financial literacy. They also don’t trust the government, by and large. So, even people with insured deposits at banks they wouldn’t have heard of if they didn’t live right up the street from them, will probably be predisposed to taking their — whatever — $25,000 to Bank of America or at least some institution they can name off the top of their head. This is mostly about psychology. If you see a line at your bank, you’re probably going to stop what you’re doing and join it.

Of course, market participants know all of that, and you can be absolutely sure that scores of opportunistic vultures spent their weekend making hit lists of bank shares likely to come under pressure this week if the nightly news is a highlight reel of long lines at local lenders. That pressure (on the shares) can be a self-fulfilling prophecy — if it’s bad enough, if can complicate capital raises.

There are no great options here, and time is very short. If you’re the Fed, Treasury and the FDIC, you can’t have bank runs across the country, which means that in pinch, you might just have to unilaterally guarantee all of SVB’s deposits retroactively. That’d be extremely awkward for two obvious reasons. First, it’d mean a de facto guarantee for all uninsured deposits at all banks and that’d be very hard to walk back once the emergency is over. Second, it’s probably illegal and it’d be met with conniption fits on Capitol Hill.

Coming full circle, I’d expect some answers from US regulators and authorities by Sunday evening. You really don’t want markets to force this issue, and if you give them (markets) the opportunity, they will. One thing’s for sure: Somebody has to say something by 9:30 AM Monday in New York.