The medallion model was never meant to be a physical storage mandate. It is a pattern language for expressing guarantees about evidence, interpretation, and trust. In mature, regulated platforms, those guarantees increasingly live in contracts, lineage, governance, and tests: not in rigid physical layers. Collapsing the medallion does not weaken regulatory substantiation; it strengthens it by decoupling invariants from layout. This article explains why layers were necessary, why they eventually collapse, and what must never be lost when they do.