Settlement

Settlement is where money actually moves. The reserve pays the payee. That's it, and the shortness is the point: by the time you get here, everything interesting has already been decided.

#Out of the reserve, not through you

The reserve makes the payment. It doesn't route through an account of yours, because there isn't one. This is the mechanical version of permission instead of transfer.

Worth spelling out: there's no moment where you hold the money. Not for a second, not atomically inside a transaction, not in some intermediate contract with your name on it. The money's only journey is reserve to payee.

#What the payee sees

A payment, from a reserve. They know they were paid and how much, which they have to, or being paid would be useless. What the transaction doesn't carry is a sending account belonging to you, because none was involved.

#It happens on chain

Settlement is public and observable. That's deliberate, not a leak. The claim was never that NULL's activity is invisible; it's that the activity isn't tied to anyone. Anyone can watch a reserve pay out. Nobody can work out whose right authorized it.

#When it fails

If the check doesn't pass, nothing settles. There's no half-finished state to unwind and no pending balance to reconcile, because nothing moved in the first place. A failed payment leaves the reserve exactly as it was, minus whatever gas you spent trying.