Cosmos is charting an ambitious path forward with its 2026 stack upgrade, zeroing in on what the financial settlement layer demands: raw performance at scale. The upcoming iteration targets industry-leading benchmarks that could reshape how settlement infrastructure operates. We're talking 5,000 transactions per second, 500-millisecond block confirmation times, and—here's the kicker—consistent performance even when the network is hammered with sustained transaction volume. This isn't theoretical. It's about moving from a proof-of-concept mentality to something enterprises can actually build on. The Cosmos ecosystem has already proven its infrastructure credentials; this refresh is about supercharging reliability and throughput for the institutions that need predictable, high-capacity settlement rails.