Legislative status is as of the morning of August 7, 2026 and is the most perishable content on this page — the Senate was still in session at publication and had not filed cloture. The settlement-gap arithmetic in Figure 3 is derived from published Federal Reserve Financial Services operating hours and excludes Federal Reserve holidays, which makes 58 hours a conservative floor rather than an average. Stablecoin volume figures are Visa Onchain Analytics' adjusted series, which strips bot and rebalancing traffic and is not comparable to raw on-chain volume. Three widely reported items could not be confirmed against primary sources and are excluded from the argument rather than hedged inside it; they are listed in the appendix, along with a note on why the BNY–Galaxy staking announcement is set aside rather than counted. Several instruments discussed are the subject of pending federal litigation whose outcome would change their legal character. Research and education, not investment advice.