The value chain, animated.

Every actor in a Fiat-on-Chain network, and what passes between them: from a customer's instruction to a supervisor's verdict — including the day something goes wrong.

Chapter 1 of 9

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Amounts are illustrative Georgian lari. Four confirming computers, one of them the central bank (purple). Green packets carry money; purple carry signed messages; blue carry fingerprints and proofs; red and amber carry refusals and halts.

Plain words used here, and the technical terms behind them

On screen	Technical term	What it means
Shared settlement ledger	settlement leg (permissioned ledger)	A ledger operated by Fiat-on-Chain and confirmed by the member banks and the central bank; only members can write to it.
Bank A tokens	token class; deposit token	A bank deposit recorded in a form that can be sent directly. Each token is a promise from that bank.
Token gateway	binding kit	Software inside the bank that turns the bank's ordinary payment messages (ISO 20022) into signed token instructions.
Two keys · hardware key safe	posting key and policy key in an HSM, threshold-controlled	Two separate signing keys held in tamper-resistant hardware; both must sign before a token is created.
Fingerprint	commitment (Merkle root)	A short code that changes if any entry in the ledger changes, so the ledger can be checked without revealing it.
Proof	consistency proof (zero-knowledge sum proof)	Mathematical evidence that tokens in existence equal the bank's ledger, without showing customer balances.
Circuit breaker	breaker state machine	An automatic stop on token creation when a proof is late or wrong; restarted only by authorized people.
Central bank · pooled account	omnibus reserve account; settlement balances	One account at the central bank holding the member banks' settlement money, split between them on the shared ledger.
Confirming computers	validators (QBFT consensus); committed seals	The computers that agree each transaction happened; three of four must sign for it to be final.
Identity passport	identity attestation (KYC once); reliance record	A bank's signed statement that it has checked a customer, which other institutions can rely on.
Each side pays or neither does	payment-versus-payment (PvP); cross-leg atomic commit	A currency exchange where both payments settle at the same instant or both are cancelled.
Delivery and payment together	delivery-versus-payment (DvP)	A securities purchase where the bond and the money change hands in the same step or not at all.
Securities depository	central securities depository (CSD); asset leg	The institution that keeps the official register of who owns a security.
Regulator's screen	supervisor node and console	A read-only copy of the ledger run by the central bank, showing every event as it happens.
Bank failure handling	resolution: freeze, snapshot, book transfer, wind-down	The pre-agreed steps for moving a failed bank's customers to another bank without loss.
Central bank's payment system	RTGS (real-time gross settlement)	The system central banks run to move money between banks, usually in business hours.