Blockchains decentralized the ledger. Mass decentralizes the asset itself—programmable entities that carry compliance, identity, and operational intelligence as they move between competing sovereigns.
This is an operating system for jurisdictions. Incorporation, compliance, banking—as APIs. Instead of banks being the compliance bottleneck, the asset carries compliance and can route between jurisdictions the way packets route between networks.
The Problem
Global compliance is exponentially expensive. Every jurisdiction has its own rules. Every crossing requires lawyers, time, trust. The friction compounds: a company operating across five jurisdictions doesn't face 5× the complexity—it faces 5² or worse.
This is the problem Stripe showed me. Payment rails were just the surface. The deeper problem is that the world's institutional infrastructure was designed for a world of slow movement and local operation. That world is gone.
Smart Assets
The primitive is the Smart Asset: a programmable entity that embeds compliance, identity, and operational intelligence directly into the asset itself.
Nick Szabo's smart contracts embedded the terms of an agreement directly into code—the contract executes itself. Smart Assets do the same for compliance: the rules aren't imposed from outside, they're intrinsic to the asset. A Smart Asset is a self-enforcing compliance contract that moves between jurisdictions.
This inverts the traditional model. Instead of jurisdictions imposing compliance on assets from the outside, assets carry compliance as an intrinsic property. The asset becomes self-sovereign.
Jurisdictions as Nodes
Mass is a network. The nodes are sovereign jurisdictions—special economic zones, free zones, nation-states. Each node has its own rules, its own advantages, its own regulatory philosophy.
Assets route between nodes based on their needs. A company might incorporate in one jurisdiction for liability protection, bank in another for capital access, and operate in a third for talent. The Smart Asset makes this composable.
Currently live across the US, Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, and Próspera ZEDE in Honduras. In 2026, we're deploying across all 27 of Dubai's free zones through a partnership with the Dubai Free Zone Council.
The Cold Start Problem
Every network faces the cold start problem: why would anyone join before there's value? Mass solves this by making each jurisdiction independently valuable.
A jurisdiction doesn't need the network to benefit from the operating system. The APIs for incorporation, compliance, and banking create immediate value. The network effects come later—but the single-node value comes first.
This is how you bootstrap a network of sovereigns: make each node better off alone, then make them dramatically better off together.
The Mathematics
The architecture draws on the mathematics of how local structures compose into global ones.
In the mathematics I study, local data determines global behavior through precise composition rules. Mass applies the same principle to institutional design: local compliance rules compose into global compliance through the Smart Asset primitive.