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Marker 1
The three countries that have fully launched a retail CBDC—Bahamas, Jamaica, Nigeria—all show slow adoption, and Nigeria is the cleanest case. After four years, only 0.5% of the population uses the eNaira, 98.5% of wallets are inactive, and Nigerians have meanwhile moved roughly $59 billion through unauthorized stablecoins. The state could issue the eNaira; it could not manufacture the cultural legibility required to make it preferred.
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Marker 2
Sovereign Bitcoin holdings now exist in formal frameworks across multiple states. The United States established a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve by executive order in March 2025, holding approximately 200,000-328,000 BTC; El Salvador continues transparent accumulation at around 7,500 BTC; Pakistan announced a strategic reserve in 2026; sub-national entities including New Hampshire and several US states have authorized Bitcoin allocations. Bitcoin ETF assets under management have grown into the tens of billions of dollars. The institutional acceptance is real. The reserve substitution is not. Total sovereign Bitcoin holdings combined represent roughly one percent of central bank gold holdings by value. In Q1 2026 alone, central banks added 244 tonnes of gold—approximately $35 billion at recent prices—equivalent to the entire sovereign Bitcoin position globally added in one quarter.
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Marker 3
Trade settlement and reserve share for the yuan have moved in opposite directions over the past year, by significant margins. China's Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) processed approximately $24.5 trillion in cross-border RMB transactions in 2024, up 43% year-over-year, with 2025 on pace to reach roughly $30 trillion. Average daily CIPS settlement value rose from 619 billion yuan in February 2026 to 920 billion yuan in March 2026—a 50% monthly increase—and hit a single-day record of 1.22 trillion yuan ($178.5 billion) in early April. Over the same period, RMB share of SWIFT international payments declined from a December 2024 peak of 4.6% (fourth place globally) to 2.13% in January 2026 (sixth place). Yuan-denominated trade settlement is not in retreat. It is migrating off the Western messaging system that historically measured it.
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Marker 4
Dollar-pegged stablecoins passed $33 trillion in total settlement volume in 2025, exceeding Visa annual throughput, with 99% of supply dollar-denominated and USDT and USDC accounting for 84% of market capitalization. The growth is concentrated in exactly the economies where local currency trust is weak. In Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East, stablecoin flows now reach 7-8% of GDP. Argentina processed $34 billion in stablecoin transactions in 2024; Mexico's BBVA reported 450% growth in USDC volume; sub-Saharan Africa saw 52% year-over-year adoption growth. Nigerians moved approximately $26 billion through stablecoins in 2024, primarily USDT on Tron—despite official policies that restricted cryptocurrency trading. The pattern is consistent: populations with established informal dollarization adopted digital dollars at scale and at speed.
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Marker 5
The crossover Appendix G named as a leading indicator has happened and widened. Foreign central bank gold holdings reached approximately $4 trillion by early 2026, surpassing their roughly $3.9 trillion in US Treasury holdings—the first time since 1996 that gold has been the larger reserve asset. The gap continues to grow as the trend compounds: gold rose roughly 65% in 2025 and continued upward through Q1 2026, while Treasury holdings dipped modestly. Central bank net purchases ran above 1,000 tonnes per year for three consecutive years (2022, 2023, 2024) and added 244 tonnes in Q1 2026 alone—the seventeenth consecutive month of net purchases at price levels 81% above year-ago.
