Q-Day Settlement-Layer Failure-Mode — Instant Liquidation vs PQC-Latency Grinding Freeze

The Q-Day report (Findings #014, #025) argues that post-quantum-cryptography payload bloat (ML-DSA signatures + BIP-360 P2MR witnesses are far larger than ECDSA; BIS Project Leap testing shows significant performance drag) introduces involuntary latency friction that would PREVENT the engine's 2032 'instant simultaneous correlated liquidation' — instead producing 'a slow, grinding freeze as the network chokes on PQC packet sizes.' ENGINE READING (corrected after full-data cross-check): this is NOT a falsification of the 2032 prediction. The engine's 2032 thesis is CATASTROPHIC SETTLEMENT-LAYER FAILURE (Report #72: DTCC NSCC netting cascade, custody-pyramid inversion, rehypothecation unwind) — and it already contains 'no buyers,' 'redemption halts,' and netting-cascade language fully consistent with a freeze. So Q-Day refines the FAILURE MODE (instant vs grinding), not WHETHER 2032 breaks. It also CONVERGES with engine canon: the 2032 crisis is the pre-committed trigger for crypto_coordination_substrate_candidate to displace the Layer-2 settlement architecture, and Q-Day is the cryptographic pressure on that handoff. DISCRIMINATOR (held for adversarial-test gate): (1) by 2032, what fraction of DTCC/Euroclear/Bitcoin settlement runs migrated PQC vs legacy? (2) does measured PQC verification latency in a live high-frequency clearing environment exceed the threshold that converts a correlated sell-off into a netting freeze? (3) the 'mythos-cracks-first' path — a classified sub-million-qubit confirmation triggers a pre-emptive run BEFORE any public crypto break. Apex Superposition: (a) state-gated decryption monopoly, (b) structural crypto-fragility, (c) PQC-friction compound-null — held simultaneously; do not collapse. Bound-LLM mediation acknowledged (Google owns Gemini + Willow + employs Gidney). NOT promoted to a prediction rewrite per the no-Layer-1-in-routine-ripple discipline.