ABSTRACT
This technical monograph presents the Momentum Open Source SEZ Stack, a comprehensive framework for programmable jurisdictional infrastructure. The Stack provides a complete, modular, and version-controlled legal-technical architecture enabling corporations, Special Economic Zones, digital free zones, and programmable institutions to deploy sophisticated governance frameworks at software speed.
The specification encompasses six architectural layers spanning public law enabling authority, private law operating systems, regulatory supervision, financial infrastructure, cross-border corridors, and observability control planes. Each layer is implemented through independently versioned modules that can be composed into deployment profiles matching specific jurisdictional requirements.
Version 0.4.0 introduces cryptographically meaningful corridors through Verifiable Credential binding, commitment-aware activation semantics with role-based signature thresholds, comprehensive jurisdiction modules covering approximately 56 United States jurisdictions (50 states plus territories), all 28 Dubai free zones, all 5 Abu Dhabi economic zones, and established offshore centers including Próspera ZEDE, Cayman Islands, and British Virgin Islands.
The specification further incorporates civic governance structures drawn from competitive topology theory, including quadratic voting mechanisms, liquid democracy implementations, and distributed consensus frameworks. Network diffusion protocols enable experimental governance innovations to propagate across the deployed zone network as validation occurs at scale, creating a planetary-scale laboratory for jurisdictional experimentation.
PART I: THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS
The emergence of cryptographic primitives across finance, compliance, and regulatory frontiers has converged with fundamental shifts in culture, law, and technology to create a novel class of programmable institutions. These entities operate across networks, continents, and markets, exhibiting properties and behaviors that existing legal and economic frameworks have not yet fully explored or accommodated. This section establishes the theoretical foundations upon which the Momentum SEZ Stack is constructed, providing the conceptual scaffolding necessary to understand both the problem being solved and the architectural choices that define the solution.
1.1 The Programmable Institution Thesis
A programmable institution differs from a traditional institution in three fundamental ways that together represent a paradigm shift in how human coordination can be structured and sustained across time and space.
1.1.1 Rules as Executable Code
First, a programmable institution expresses its rules as executable code rather than natural language documents. This transformation enables automated enforcement and dramatically reduces interpretive ambiguity. Where traditional institutions rely on courts, arbitrators, and administrative bodies to interpret and enforce rules after the fact, programmable institutions encode expectations directly into their operational logic. Compliance becomes a computational property rather than a post-hoc determination.
Consider the difference between a traditional corporate bylaws provision stating that "board meetings require a quorum of at least three directors" versus a smart contract that programmatically rejects any board action unless cryptographic signatures from at least three registered director keys are present. The natural language formulation requires interpretation, enforcement, and potentially litigation. The programmatic formulation is self-enforcing by construction.
This shift from natural language to executable code does not eliminate human judgment but rather relocates it. Human judgment occurs at the design phase when rules are specified, and at the interpretation phase when edge cases arise that the rules did not anticipate. But routine enforcement becomes automatic, consistent, and auditable in ways impossible with natural language rules.
1.1.2 Network Membership Over Geography
Second, a programmable institution defines its boundaries by network membership rather than geography. Traditional institutions derive their authority from territorial sovereignty—the state's monopoly on legitimate force within defined borders. A corporation exists because a state registry says it exists. Property rights are enforceable because courts with territorial jurisdiction will enforce them. Contracts are binding because sovereign legal systems provide remedies for breach.
Programmable institutions instead derive authority from cryptographic membership and consent. An entity participates by holding credentials, not by physical presence. A Decentralized Autonomous Organization member might be located in Singapore, Nigeria, or Brazil, but their membership in the organization is established by holding the organization's governance token or possessing the appropriate cryptographic keys. Geographic location becomes incidental rather than constitutive of institutional membership.
This enables global participation while maintaining coherent governance structures. A traditional multinational corporation must navigate dozens of legal systems, each with different requirements for corporate formation, securities regulation, employment law, and tax compliance. A programmable institution can define consistent rules that apply uniformly to all members regardless of their physical location, while selectively interfacing with territorial legal systems only when necessary for specific operations.
1.1.3 Immutable State Records
Third, a programmable institution records its state changes on immutable ledgers. Every action that affects the institution's state—incorporations, transfers, votes, regulatory filings—creates a permanent, cryptographically signed record. This provides unprecedented transparency and auditability that no traditional institution can match.
Regulators can verify compliance without accessing private data because the compliance proof itself is recorded. Counterparties can trust without intermediaries because the ledger provides objective evidence of institutional state. Historians can reconstruct institutional evolution with mathematical certainty because every state transition is permanently recorded.
The immutability property means that institutional history cannot be retroactively altered. A traditional corporation's records can be modified, lost, or disputed. A programmable institution's records are cryptographically secured against modification, providing a foundation for trust that does not depend on institutional honesty or record-keeping competence.
1.2 The Infrastructure Gap
Despite significant advances in both Special Economic Zone development and blockchain technology over the past decade, a critical infrastructure gap remains. This gap represents both the primary obstacle to programmable institution adoption and the primary opportunity for whoever closes it.
1.2.1 The State of SEZ Legal Infrastructure
The most sophisticated real-world SEZ implementation today—Próspera ZEDE in Honduras—maintains over 2,000 pages of operational legal code published at pzgps.hn. This represents years of legal drafting, regulatory negotiation, and iterative refinement. The framework incorporates the Roatán Common Law Code based on ALI Restatements and the Uniform Commercial Code, custom tax statutes, labor law, and financial services regulations through the Roatán Financial Services Authority.
Yet this legal code exists as proprietary PDFs without version control, semantic structure, or programmatic accessibility. The legal texts that govern hundreds of incorporated companies and thousands of residents cannot be automatically processed, validated, or compared against regulatory requirements. A software developer cannot write code that references specific Próspera legal provisions because those provisions have no machine-readable identifiers. A researcher cannot compare Próspera's corporate law with Delaware's because the documents are not structured for comparison.
Template materials from organizations like the Charter Cities Institute provide starting points for new jurisdictions but lack battle-tested operational validation. They represent aspirational frameworks rather than proven deployment artifacts. The gap between template and operational reality consumes years of legal work, regulatory negotiation, and iterative refinement for each new jurisdiction.
1.2.2 The Strategic Gap
No repository exists for a complete, version-controlled SEZ legal stack that can be forked, customized, and deployed across jurisdictions. This represents a fundamental infrastructure deficit for the programmable institutions ecosystem. Without such infrastructure, each new jurisdiction must reinvent the wheel, duplicating years of legal work that previous jurisdictions have already completed. Interoperability between jurisdictions remains impossible because there is no common vocabulary, no shared schemas, and no mechanism for recognizing equivalent provisions across different legal frameworks.
The Momentum SEZ Stack fills this gap by synthesizing operational legal code from multiple proven jurisdictions into a modular, open architecture. Rather than treating any single jurisdiction's framework as definitive, the Stack draws from the jurisdiction with the strongest demonstrated implementation of each specific legal domain—creating a composite that exceeds any individual source in completeness, deployability, and programmability.
1.3 Asset Decentralization vs. Ledger Decentralization
The cryptocurrency industry has largely focused on ledger decentralization: distributing the database that records transactions across multiple nodes to eliminate single points of failure and censorship. Bitcoin demonstrated that a monetary ledger could operate without any central authority. Ethereum extended this principle to arbitrary computation. Thousands of subsequent blockchain projects have explored variations on distributed consensus.
This architectural achievement, while technically impressive, addresses only part of the problem. Ledger decentralization does not touch the assets themselves.
1.3.1 The Limits of Ledger Decentralization
A tokenized security recorded on a decentralized blockchain still depends on centralized legal infrastructure to define what the token represents, who can hold it, what rights attach to it, and how disputes are resolved. The token is decentralized; the security is not. When regulators demand compliance, the token issuer faces the same requirements as any traditional securities issuer. When disputes arise, parties must turn to traditional courts that may not recognize the blockchain record as authoritative. When counterparties require assurance, they need legal opinions and regulatory approvals that no blockchain can provide.
This distinction explains why so many blockchain projects have failed to achieve mainstream adoption for anything beyond speculation. They decentralized the ledger while leaving the assets centralized. The decentralized infrastructure could record transactions but could not resolve the fundamental coordination problems that institutions exist to solve.
1.3.2 True Asset Decentralization
Asset decentralization goes further. It embeds the legal, compliance, and operational rules directly into the asset representation itself. A truly decentralized asset carries its compliance requirements, identity verification rules, and governance mechanisms wherever it moves. It does not depend on any single jurisdiction's courts or regulators for enforcement—multiple jurisdictions can independently verify and enforce the embedded rules.
The Momentum SEZ Stack enables true asset decentralization by providing the legal infrastructure layer that blockchain projects have lacked. Smart Assets—the core primitive of the Mass Protocol—can carry compliance, identity, and operational intelligence because the Stack provides the legal definitions, regulatory frameworks, and governance structures that make such intelligence meaningful.
When a Smart Asset moves between jurisdictions—from a UAE free zone to Kazakhstan's AIFC, for example—the programmable compliance layer automatically reconciles the differing legal requirements. Both jurisdictions run the SEZ Stack with jurisdiction-specific overrides; the protocol computes the intersection of permissible actions and enforces compliance at both endpoints. This is jurisdictional decentralization in practice: enabling competition between legal systems at software speed.
1.4 Core Design Principles
The SEZ Stack is built on five core design principles that enable both technical sophistication and practical deployment. These principles emerged from careful analysis of why previous approaches failed and what successful deployments require.
Legal provisions follow MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH versioning where MAJOR indicates constitutional or structural changes that may break existing integrations, MINOR indicates new statutes or regulations that extend capabilities, and PATCH indicates clarifications or corrections that do not change legal meaning. This enables jurisdictions to track upstream changes and selectively merge improvements while maintaining stability guarantees for existing participants.
A jurisdiction deploying version 2.3.7 of a module can upgrade to 2.3.8 (patch) or 2.4.0 (minor) with confidence that existing integrations will continue functioning. Upgrading to 3.0.0 (major) requires explicit review because the semantic contract may have changed. This versioning discipline enables predictable evolution without requiring jurisdictions to accept every upstream change.
1.4.2 Principle 2: Modular Independence
Each module—whether tax, labor, financial services, entity registration, or governance—can be deployed independently with explicit dependency declarations. A jurisdiction can adopt the financial services module without the labor module, or vice versa. Dependencies are declared, not assumed; integrators can verify that all required modules are present before deployment.
This modularity enables progressive adoption. A jurisdiction can start with minimal modules—entity registry, basic dispute resolution, fundamental AML/CFT—and add capabilities over time as operational maturity develops. It also enables specialization: a digital-asset-focused free zone might deploy comprehensive financial services modules while omitting land registry and physical infrastructure modules that are irrelevant to its operations.
1.4.3 Principle 3: Jurisdiction-Specific Overrides
Core modules provide sensible defaults derived from best practices across source jurisdictions; jurisdiction folders contain overrides and local adaptations. This clear inheritance hierarchy prevents fragmentation while enabling customization. Changes flow upstream through pull requests; local adaptations stay isolated in jurisdiction folders.
The override mechanism uses a deterministic layering system. When assembling a jurisdiction's legal stack, the build system starts with core module content, applies profile-specific parameters, then applies jurisdiction-specific patches in declared order. The resulting legal text is reproducible from the same inputs, enabling audit and verification.
1.4.4 Principle 4: Dual-Format Accessibility
XML source files using Akoma Ntoso schemas enable machine processing—validation, comparison, automated compliance checking. Automated rendering produces HTML, PDF, and plain text for legal practitioners who need human-readable formats. Both software systems and human readers have native access to the same underlying legal content.
This dual accessibility is essential because the Stack must serve both technical implementers and legal professionals. A compliance engineer needs machine-readable rules for policy automation. A lawyer needs readable legal text for client advice. Both work with the same underlying content, reducing the risk of divergence between what the machines enforce and what humans understand.
1.4.5 Principle 5: Protocol Integration Hooks
Each legal provision maps to programmable compliance primitives. Tax rates become smart contract parameters; entity requirements become automated verification rules; consent frameworks become cryptographic attestations. The mapping is explicit, testable, and auditable—every MUST clause in legal text has a corresponding policy-as-code implementation and conformance test.
This explicit mapping creates accountability. When a legal provision states that certain transactions require regulatory approval, the corresponding policy-as-code rule must enforce that requirement. Conformance tests verify that the enforcement matches the legal text. Any gap between legal requirement and technical enforcement is detectable and correctable.
1.5 Competitive Topologies and Democratic Innovation
Democratic institutions face a legitimacy crisis not because deliberation tools are inadequate but because structural monopoly eliminates accountability between elections. Citizens can vote every few years but have no meaningful recourse when institutions fail to deliver competent governance in the interim. This monopolistic structure explains why institutions decay, why bureaucratic dysfunction compounds, and why public trust continues its steady decline.
1.5.1 The Monopoly Problem
Every monopoly follows a predictable decay trajectory. Without competitive pressure to improve service quality, monopolistic institutions optimize for internal convenience rather than external value delivery. Bureaucracies multiply because no competitive force constrains their growth. Regulatory capture by incumbents accelerates because the institution faces no threat from alternatives. Innovation stagnates because there is no penalty for maintaining outdated processes.
Democratic institutions exhibit all these pathologies. When loan approvals take sixty days instead of minutes, when airport systems fail because they run on obsolete technology, when government agencies cannot account for their spending, the problem is not that citizens failed to vote correctly or deliberate adequately. The problem is that these institutions face no competitive pressure forcing them to improve. Citizens cannot easily exit poorly-governed jurisdictions. The switching costs of physical relocation—abandoning property, relationships, and economic opportunities—give governments enormous room for dysfunction.
1.5.2 Competition as Accountability Mechanism
The missing element in democratic theory is continuous accountability through competition. Traditional democratic accountability operates through voice and vote: citizens express preferences through elections and deliberation, hoping institutions respond appropriately. When institutions fail, citizens have minimal recourse beyond waiting for the next election cycle. This episodic accountability creates long periods where institutions can decay without consequence.
Competitive accountability operates continuously. When citizens and economic activity can migrate between jurisdictions based on service quality, governments face immediate pressure to improve performance. Bad governance faces consequences through population and capital flight. Good governance receives rewards through attraction of talent and resources. The feedback loop compresses from years to days.
The SEZ Stack enables this competitive accountability by dramatically reducing the costs of jurisdictional migration. When legal frameworks are modular and interoperable, when corridors enable seamless cross-border operations, when compliance requirements can be computed and compared automatically, the friction that protects incumbent jurisdictions from competition largely disappears. Jurisdictions must earn the right to harbor citizens and businesses by providing superior services.
1.5.3 Network Topology and Governance Design Space
The structure of networks determines what organizational forms become possible. Centralized hub-and-spoke topologies create single points of failure and bottlenecks that constrain throughput. Distributed mesh networks enable parallel experimentation and rapid propagation of successful patterns. The topology itself shapes the possibility space for what can be built.
Current democratic infrastructure operates primarily as hub-and-spoke hierarchy. National governments sit at the center, with citizens as peripheral nodes. Information flows upward through representatives, decisions flow downward through bureaucracies. This topology worked adequately when communication was slow and coordination across distance was expensive. It breaks catastrophically when technology enables direct coordination at scale.
The SEZ Stack implements a different topology. Jurisdictions form a mesh network where each node can communicate with any other node through corridors. Successful governance innovations propagate across the network as other jurisdictions adopt proven modules. Failed experiments remain contained within single jurisdictions rather than affecting the entire system. The network learns collectively through distributed trial and error impossible in centralized systems.
PART II: GLOBAL DIGITAL FREE ZONE LANDSCAPE
The global landscape of digital free zones has evolved rapidly over the past five years, with approximately two dozen jurisdictions now offering specialized frameworks for blockchain, cryptocurrency, and digital asset businesses. This analysis examines the key implementations to inform the Stack's design and validate its architectural choices. The analysis reveals distinct architectural patterns that jurisdictions have adopted, each representing different trade-offs between regulatory flexibility, operational maturity, and integration complexity.
2.1 Comprehensive Charter City Models
The first pattern represents the most ambitious approach: jurisdictions that have attempted to build complete legal systems from scratch, optimized for digital commerce and programmable institutions.
2.1.1 Próspera ZEDE (Honduras)
Status: Operational since 2017, despite a 2024 Honduran Supreme Court ruling declaring ZEDEs unconstitutional. The zone continues operations under CAFTA-DR international trade treaty protections, with a $10.7 billion arbitration claim pending against Honduras. Over 250 companies incorporated; 1,200+ residents.
Legal Architecture: Próspera maintains the most comprehensive published legal stack of any digital free zone, comprising over 2,000 pages of operational legal code published at pzgps.hn. The framework incorporates the Roatán Common Law Code (based on ALI Restatements and UCC), custom tax statutes, labor law, and financial services regulations through the Roatán Financial Services Authority.
Key innovations include the Regulatory Choice mechanism, which enables companies to select regulatory frameworks from approved OECD jurisdictions or propose custom regulations. The tax structure offers 1% revenue tax, 5% income tax, and 2.5% sales tax, with Bitcoin recognized as legal tender. A 50-year legal stability guarantee, locked in via bilateral investment treaties, prohibits retroactive changes and provides the foundation for long-term investment.
Relevance to Stack: Próspera's published legal code provides the most complete reference implementation for conversion to structured XML/JSON with semantic versioning. Key documents for integration include the Próspera Charter, Tax Statute, Entity Registry Statute, and Financial Regulation A. The regulatory choice mechanism demonstrates how programmable compliance can enable jurisdiction selection at granular levels rather than requiring wholesale adoption of any single framework.
2.1.2 Gelephu Mindfulness City (Bhutan)
Status: Special Administrative Region launched 2024; 10,000 BTC ($875M+) committed as strategic reserves for development; construction underway. First sovereign-backed digital asset economic zone integrating Bitcoin mining, gold-backed tokens, and blockchain identity.
Legal Architecture: GMC's legal framework adopts a deliberate hybrid approach, combining Singapore's commercial law with Abu Dhabi Global Market's financial services regulations. This choice reflects sophisticated jurisdiction shopping—selecting the optimal framework for each function rather than adopting a single jurisdiction's complete legal system.
The framework designates BTC, ETH, and BNB as official reserve assets, implements a national identity system anchored on Ethereum blockchain (the world's first sovereign blockchain identity), and issues the TER token on Solana backed by physical gold reserves. Constitutional environmental protections requiring 70%+ forest coverage differentiate GMC from pure tax haven positioning.
Strategic Significance: GMC's explicit adoption of ADGM financial regulations validates ADGM as the preferred model for sophisticated digital asset jurisdictions. The SAR's position as a gateway to South Asian markets (serving 2+ billion people) and its existing partnership pipeline with Cumberland DRW, DK Bank, and Binance Pay demonstrates the infrastructure required for programmable jurisdiction deployment.
2.2 Digital-Native Free Zones
The second pattern represents jurisdictions built specifically for digital assets and blockchain businesses, without the comprehensive legal system ambitions of charter cities.
2.2.1 RAK Digital Assets Oasis (UAE)
Status: World's first free zone dedicated exclusively to digital assets (launched 2023). Common law framework; 400+ licensees in first 12 months. Strategic partnerships with Tether, Tencent Cloud, Avalanche, Near Protocol, and Binance.
RAK DAO introduced the DAO Association Regime (DARe) 2024, providing a legal framework specifically designed for DAOs with two models: emerging projects (under 100 members) and mature DAOs (over $1M treasury). The zone is the only UAE free zone accepting cryptocurrency for government licensing fees, demonstrating operational commitment to digital-native processes. Pre-arranged banking partnerships guarantee account access for licensed entities—a critical practical consideration often overlooked in theoretical frameworks.
Relevance to Stack: RAK DAO's DARe framework provides the template for DAO-specific legal modules. The emerging/mature DAO distinction offers a progressive compliance model adaptable to other jurisdictions. The crypto payment infrastructure demonstrates operational patterns for digital-native government services.
2.2.2 Catawba Digital Economic Zone (United States)
Status: Operational since 2022 under Catawba Indian Nation sovereignty. First digital-native jurisdiction in the United States. Protected by federal treaty obligations that provide independence from state regulatory interference.
The regulatory framework includes the DAO LLC Regulation (No. 003), which combines traditional LLC limited liability with DAO governance flexibility at $250 registration fee plus $100 annual renewal. The Digital Assets Regulation (No. 002) provides consumer protection law defining blockchain, digital assets, and NFTs, classifying them as personal property. The Banking and Financial Services Code (No. 004) grants full banking charter authority with US regulatory compliance.
Uniquely, Catawba offers the Unincorporated Non-profit Association structure—the first jurisdiction globally to provide UNA framework specifically designed for DAOs.
Relevance to Stack: CDEZ's regulations are structured for direct conversion to programmable modules. The UBA/ABA model law basis ensures compatibility with common law jurisdictions worldwide. Banking charter authority demonstrates the path for financial services integration within digital free zones—a capability that most digital-native zones lack.
2.2.3 Zanzibar Digital Free Zone (Tanzania)
Status: Joint venture between the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar (ZICTIA) and OurWorld Venture Creator. Positioned as the world's first 100% digital free zone with fully automated onboarding and no physical presence requirements.
Distinguishing features include fully automated digital-native incorporation without physical presence requirements, integrated Web3 banking supporting both fiat and cryptocurrency, and autonomous data infrastructure using quantum-safe storage with ThreeFold decentralized infrastructure. The zone's strategic location provides an East African gateway with Tanzania's 6-7% annual economic growth.
Relevance to Stack: ZDFZ demonstrates the minimal viable legal infrastructure for digital-first free zones, particularly relevant for African deployments. The ThreeFold partnership illustrates infrastructure patterns for sovereign data residency requirements without reliance on hyperscaler cloud providers.
2.3 Financial Center Adaptations
The third pattern represents established financial centers that have adapted their existing frameworks to accommodate digital assets while maintaining continuity with traditional finance infrastructure.
2.3.1 Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM)
Status: Premier financial services regulatory framework for digital assets since 2018. First comprehensive crypto asset regulatory framework in the Gulf region. Over 1,800 registered companies; $26B+ assets under management.
ADGM's Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) established its Virtual Asset Framework in 2018, providing six years of operational refinement through real-world licensing applications. This maturity makes ADGM the preferred model for financial services regulation—evidenced by Gelephu Mindfulness City's explicit adoption of ADGM financial regulations over alternatives.
Comprehensive licensing requires FSRA authorization for virtual asset activities including operating exchanges, custodian services, dealing, brokerage, and asset management. The RegLab Sandbox enables controlled testing of innovative products before full licensing. FATF-aligned AML/CFT requirements are integrated directly into licensing processes. Detailed custody rules specify cold storage percentages, key management requirements, and insurance minimums. Risk-based capital adequacy requirements are calibrated specifically to virtual asset activities.
Relevance to Stack: ADGM's FSRA framework provides the operational template for the financial-services module of the programmable legal stack. The six-year track record of processing crypto licensing applications offers proven patterns for AML/CFT integration, custody requirements, and capital adequacy rules.
2.3.2 Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC)
Status: Premier Middle East financial hub since 2004; 6,920+ active companies. Digital Assets Law No. 2 of 2024 enacted March 8, 2024, providing the most comprehensive property law treatment of digital assets in any jurisdiction worldwide.
While ADGM leads on financial services regulation, DIFC's Digital Assets Law 2024 represents the cleanest legislative drafting for digital asset property rights and smart contract recognition. The law addresses foundational legal questions that ADGM's regulatory framework assumes rather than defines—making it essential for the civil-code module.
Key provisions include legal definition of digital assets as notional quantity units created by software and network data, existing independently of persons or legal systems and being non-duplicable. The property classification establishes digital assets as intangible property distinct from physical objects or rights requiring legal action—the first statutory codification of this principle globally. Clear rules govern establishing control of digital assets and valid transfer mechanisms. The Coded Contracts framework amends Contract Law to introduce self-executing smart contracts as enforceable agreements. The new Law of Security (DIFC Law No. 4 of 2024) addresses digital asset collateral based on UNCITRAL Model Law.
Relevance to Stack: DIFC's Digital Assets Law 2024 provides the template for property law treatment of digital assets in the civil-code module. The coded contracts framework informs smart contract recognition patterns. The Law of Security amendments demonstrate how to extend traditional security interests to digital assets.
2.3.3 DMCC Crypto Centre (Dubai)
Status: 550+ crypto and blockchain companies; largest regional ecosystem. Launched 2021 with CV Labs partnership.
The operational model offers two license types: proprietary crypto trading (AED 50,000 capital requirement) and DLT/blockchain technology development. A memorandum of understanding with the Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA) coordinates crypto asset activities across regulatory boundaries. Ecosystem services include incubation, legal advisory, tokenomics design, and compliance support through the CV Labs partnership.
Relevance to Stack: DMCC demonstrates the ecosystem development model for digital free zones. The partnership structure with CV Labs provides a template for accelerator/incubator integration. The dual-license approach offers compliance modularity for different business models.
2.4 United States Jurisdictional Landscape
The United States presents a uniquely complex regulatory environment for digital assets and programmable institutions. Rather than a single federal framework, the US operates as 50+ overlapping jurisdictions with varying approaches to blockchain technology, digital assets, money transmission, and corporate formation. This complexity creates both challenges and opportunities for the SEZ Stack.
2.4.1 Federal Regulatory Overlay
All US jurisdictions operate under federal regulatory constraints that form a baseline layer. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) maintains authority over securities regardless of state law. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) regulates derivatives and commodities. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) imposes anti-money laundering requirements. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) charters national banks. The Federal Reserve supervises bank holding companies and state member banks. State law can add requirements but cannot subtract from federal minimums.
2.4.2 State-Level Approaches
States have adopted dramatically different approaches to digital assets. Wyoming leads with the most comprehensive crypto-friendly legislation, including the Special Purpose Depository Institution (SPDI) charter enabling banks to custody digital assets, DAO LLC legislation providing legal personality to decentralized autonomous organizations, and utility token exemptions that clarify when tokens are not securities.
New York represents the opposite extreme with the BitLicense framework imposing comprehensive requirements on virtual currency businesses. Between these poles, most states apply traditional money transmission laws with varying interpretations of whether and how they apply to cryptocurrency activities.
2.4.3 Tribal Sovereignty Opportunities
The Catawba Digital Economic Zone demonstrates that tribal sovereignty under federal treaty obligations can create regulatory environments independent of state law. This model is potentially replicable across the 574 federally recognized tribes, each of which possesses inherent sovereignty that enables independent regulatory frameworks subject only to federal law.
2.4.4 United States Jurisdiction Matrix
The following matrix summarizes the legal framework characteristics of all US states and territories relevant to the SEZ Stack:
Jurisdiction | Code | Legal System | Key Characteristics |
Alabama | AL | Common Law | UCC adopted, single-member LLC |
Alaska | AK | Common Law | Series LLC, no state income tax |
Arizona | AZ | Common Law | Blockchain-friendly statutes |
Arkansas | AR | Common Law | UCC Article 9 modernized |
California | CA | Common Law | Largest economy, complex compliance |
Colorado | CO | Common Law | Digital token exemption |
Connecticut | CT | Common Law | Money transmission licensing |
Delaware | DE | Common Law | Corporate law leader, blockchain amendment |
Florida | FL | Common Law | No state income tax, crypto-friendly |
Georgia | GA | Common Law | Fintech sandbox |
Hawaii | HI | Common Law | Digital currency sandbox |
Idaho | ID | Common Law | UCC standard adoption |
Illinois | IL | Common Law | Blockchain business development |
Indiana | IN | Common Law | UCC Article 12 consideration |
Iowa | IA | Common Law | Agricultural fintech focus |
Kansas | KS | Common Law | Money transmission exemptions |
Kentucky | KY | Common Law | Blockchain tech initiatives |
Louisiana | LA | Civil Law | Unique civil law system |
Maine | ME | Common Law | Virtual currency guidance |
Maryland | MD | Common Law | Fintech development zone |
Continuation of United States Jurisdiction Matrix:
Jurisdiction | Code | Legal System | Key Characteristics |
Massachusetts | MA | Common Law | Strong securities regulation |
Michigan | MI | Common Law | Blockchain task force |
Minnesota | MN | Common Law | Money transmission modernization |
Mississippi | MS | Common Law | Standard UCC adoption |
Missouri | MO | Common Law | No money transmission for crypto |
Montana | MT | Common Law | Utility token exemption |
Nebraska | NE | Common Law | Digital asset bank charter |
Nevada | NV | Common Law | No corporate tax, blockchain statutes |
New Hampshire | NH | Common Law | No sales/income tax, crypto-friendly |
New Jersey | NJ | Common Law | BitLicense consideration |
New Mexico | NM | Common Law | Money transmission registration |
New York | NY | Common Law | BitLicense, comprehensive regulation |
North Carolina | NC | Common Law | Money transmission licensing |
North Dakota | ND | Common Law | Virtual currency exemption |
Ohio | OH | Common Law | Bitcoin tax payments (pilot) |
Oklahoma | OK | Common Law | Virtual currency guidance |
Oregon | OR | Common Law | No sales tax, tech-friendly |
Pennsylvania | PA | Common Law | Money transmission guidance |
Rhode Island | RI | Common Law | Fintech sandbox consideration |
South Carolina | SC | Common Law | Standard money transmission |
Continuation of United States Jurisdiction Matrix (Territories):
Jurisdiction | Code | Legal System | Key Characteristics |
South Dakota | SD | Common Law | Trust-friendly, no corporate tax |
Tennessee | TN | Common Law | Blockchain business development |
Texas | TX | Common Law | Virtual currency guidance, no state income tax |
Utah | UT | Common Law | DAO LLC legislation |
Vermont | VT | Common Law | Blockchain LLC, BBLLC |
Virginia | VA | Common Law | Fintech sandbox |
Washington | WA | Common Law | Money transmission licensing |
West Virginia | WV | Common Law | Blockchain voting pilot |
Wisconsin | WI | Common Law | Standard UCC adoption |
Wyoming | WY | Common Law | DAO LLC, SPDI charter, most crypto-friendly |
District of Columbia | DC | Common Law | Federal overlay, money transmission |
Puerto Rico | PR | Civil Law hybrid | Act 60 tax incentives, crypto haven |
Guam | GU | Common Law | US banking access |
US Virgin Islands | VI | Common Law | EDC program, tax incentives |
American Samoa | AS | Common Law | Limited financial infrastructure |
Northern Mariana Islands | MP | Common Law | US regulatory framework |
2.5 UAE Free Zone Architecture
The United Arab Emirates operates one of the world's most sophisticated free zone ecosystems, with over 40 free zones across seven emirates offering varying degrees of regulatory autonomy, tax benefits, and specialized services. The Stack provides modules for all 28 Dubai free zones and all 5 Abu Dhabi economic zones.
2.5.1 Dubai Free Zone Ecosystem
Dubai alone hosts 28 free zones, each with distinct regulatory authority, target industries, and legal frameworks. The following matrix provides comprehensive coverage:
Zone | Full Name | Type | Regulator | Legal Framework |
DIFC | Dubai International Financial Centre | Financial | DFSA | English Common Law |
DMCC | Dubai Multi Commodities Centre | Commodities/Crypto | DMCC Authority | UAE Federal + DMCC Rules |
DAFZA | Dubai Airport Free Zone | Trade/Logistics | DAFZA Authority | UAE Federal |
JAFZA | Jebel Ali Free Zone | Industrial/Trade | JAFZA Authority | UAE Federal |
DSO | Dubai Silicon Oasis | Technology | DSO Authority | UAE Federal |
DIC | Dubai Internet City | Technology | TECOM | UAE Federal |
DMC | Dubai Media City | Media | TECOM | UAE Federal |
DHCC | Dubai Healthcare City | Healthcare | DHCA | UAE Federal |
DWTC | Dubai World Trade Centre | Trade/Exhibition | DWTC Authority | UAE Federal |
DKP | Dubai Knowledge Park | Education | TECOM | UAE Federal |
DWC | Dubai World Central | Aviation/Logistics | DWC Authority | UAE Federal |
IFZA | International Free Zone Authority | General Business | IFZA Authority | UAE Federal |
DUQE | DUQE Free Zone | General Business | DUQE Authority | UAE Federal |
Meydan | Meydan Free Zone | General Business | Meydan Authority | UAE Federal |
Continuation of Dubai Free Zone Matrix:
Zone | Full Name | Type | Regulator | Legal Framework |
RAK DAO | RAK Digital Assets Oasis | Digital Assets/DAOs | RAK DAO Authority | Common Law + DARe |
RAKEZ | Ras Al Khaimah Economic Zone | Industrial/Trade | RAKEZ Authority | UAE Federal |
SAIF Zone | Sharjah Airport Int'l Free Zone | Trade/Logistics | SAIF Authority | UAE Federal |
Hamriyah | Hamriyah Free Zone | Industrial | Hamriyah Authority | UAE Federal |
AFZA | Ajman Free Zone | Trade/Industrial | AFZA Authority | UAE Federal |
UAQ FTZ | Umm Al Quwain Free Trade Zone | Trade | UAQ Authority | UAE Federal |
Fujairah FZ | Fujairah Free Zone | Trade/Oil | Fujairah Authority | UAE Federal |
KIZAD | Khalifa Industrial Zone | Industrial | AD Ports | UAE Federal |
twofour54 | twofour54 | Media/Creative | twofour54 Authority | UAE Federal |
D3 | Dubai Design District | Design/Creative | TECOM | UAE Federal |
DPC | Dubai Production City | Publishing/Printing | TECOM | UAE Federal |
DOP | Dubai Outsource Park | BPO/Services | TECOM | UAE Federal |
DSC | Dubai Science Park | Science/Pharma | TECOM | UAE Federal |
DIEZ | Dubai Integrated Economic Zones | Regulatory umbrella | DIEZ Authority | UAE Federal |
2.5.2 Abu Dhabi Economic Zone Ecosystem
Abu Dhabi operates five major economic zones, each with distinct characteristics and regulatory frameworks:
Zone | Full Name | Type | Legal System | Key Features |
ADGM | Abu Dhabi Global Market | Financial Center | English Common Law | Virtual asset framework, RegLab sandbox, comprehensive crypto licensing |
ADAFZA | Abu Dhabi Airports Free Zone | Aviation/Logistics | UAE Federal | Cargo, logistics, aviation services |
KIZAD | Khalifa Industrial Zone Abu Dhabi | Industrial | UAE Federal | Manufacturing, polymers, metals, food |
Masdar City | Masdar City Free Zone | Sustainability/Tech | UAE Federal | Clean tech, renewable energy, R&D |
ZonesCorp | Industrial City of Abu Dhabi | Industrial/SME | UAE Federal | Light industrial, SME support, logistics |
2.6 Comparative Analysis and Module Source Mapping
Based on the comprehensive analysis above, the Stack's module source mapping draws from each jurisdiction's demonstrated strengths rather than adopting any single framework wholesale. The following table presents the primary sources for each major module category:
Module | Primary Source | Rationale |
core/charter/ | Próspera | Only complete operational charter published; 50-year legal stability mechanisms proven via CAFTA-DR protections |
core/civil-code/ | Próspera + DIFC | RCLC for core civil law; DIFC DAL 2024 for digital asset property classification and smart contract recognition |
modules/financial-services/ | ADGM | Six years operational track record; GMC adoption validates as gold standard for crypto licensing |
modules/security/ | DIFC | Law of Security No. 4 of 2024 provides UNCITRAL-based framework for security interests over digital assets |
modules/entity-registry/ | Próspera + Catawba + Delaware | MBCA-based structure from Próspera; DAO entity types from Catawba DEZ; corporate law excellence from Delaware |
modules/governance/ (DAO) | RAK DAO + Catawba + Wyoming | DARe progressive tiers from RAK DAO; UNA and DAO LLC structures from Catawba; Wyoming DAO LLC model |
modules/tax/ | Próspera + Wyoming | Complete tax statute with crypto provisions; LVT implementation; operational forms |
modules/dispute-resolution/ | DIFC + Próspera | DIFC Courts digital services; Próspera arbitration framework and civil procedure |
modules/banking/ | ADGM + Nebraska + Wyoming | ADGM virtual asset custody; Nebraska digital asset bank charter; Wyoming SPDI framework |
modules/aml-cft/ | ADGM + FATF | ADGM operational compliance; FATF guidance for virtual assets |
schemas/mass-protocol/ | Mass Protocol | Smart Asset primitives mapped to legal modules; attestation streams |
PART III: THE SEZ STACK ARCHITECTURE
The Momentum SEZ Stack is structured as a layered system where each layer builds upon the layers below it. Deployments implement all layers relevant to their target profile, enabling jurisdictions to select the complexity level appropriate for their needs while maintaining interoperability with the broader network.
3.1 Architectural Overview
The Stack comprises six architectural layers, from the foundational public law layer through to the observability and control plane. Each layer addresses specific functional requirements and depends on the layers beneath it for foundational services.
3.1.1 Layer A: Enabling Authority (Public Law)
This layer establishes the legal foundation that gives the zone its authority to operate. It includes the enabling act or charter that creates the zone, the delegation of authority and rulemaking powers from the sovereign, administrative procedure and appeals mechanisms, and boundary definitions (whether physical, digital, or both).
Without this layer, nothing else has legal force. The enabling authority must be robust enough to survive political changes while flexible enough to adapt to evolving technology and market conditions. The 50-year stability guarantees pioneered by Próspera, anchored in international trade treaties, represent the current best practice for this layer.
3.1.2 Layer B: Legal Operating System (Private Law)
This layer provides the private law framework that governs relationships between entities within the zone. It includes civil and commercial rules covering contracts, property, torts, and secured transactions; entity registry systems for corporations, LLCs, DAOs, and other organizational forms; property registries for real estate and intellectual property; and dispute resolution mechanisms including arbitration and court systems.
The legal operating system must be comprehensive enough that entities can conduct their affairs entirely within the zone's framework, yet interoperable enough that transactions can cross zone boundaries without legal friction.
3.1.3 Layer C: Regulatory Supervision
This layer implements the regulatory framework that governs supervised activities. It includes AML/CFT and sanctions compliance programs; market conduct and consumer protection rules; cybersecurity and data protection obligations; and financial supervision frameworks for banking, securities, and digital assets.
Regulatory supervision must satisfy international standards (FATF, Basel, IOSCO) while avoiding the bureaucratic friction that drives innovation offshore. The Stack achieves this through policy-as-code implementations that enable automated compliance verification.
3.1.4 Layer D: Financial Infrastructure
This layer provides the rails for moving money and assets. It includes domestic payment systems and adapter interfaces; domestic banking integration and account management; safeguarding and treasury controls for client funds; and settlement systems for both fiat and token rails.
Financial infrastructure represents the greatest practical barrier to zone adoption. Without banking access, entities cannot operate. The Stack addresses this through modular adapter interfaces that can connect to multiple banking partners, reducing dependence on any single relationship.
3.1.5 Layer E: Corridors (Cross-Border)
This layer enables international connectivity. It includes correspondent banking corridors using SWIFT/ISO20022 messaging; stablecoin settlement corridors for digital asset transfers; open-banking and account-to-account corridors; and passporting and mutual recognition agreements with other jurisdictions.
Corridors are where network effects manifest. A zone with corridors to major financial centers is dramatically more valuable than an isolated zone, regardless of how sophisticated its internal framework may be.
3.1.6 Layer F: Observability and Control Plane
This layer provides visibility and control for regulators and operators. It includes the regulator console (read-only, audited access to compliance data); attestation streams for cryptographic proof of compliance; audit logging for all regulated activities; and incident response and transparency reporting mechanisms.
The observability layer enables regulators to supervise without accessing raw private data, using attestation streams that prove compliance properties without revealing underlying information.
3.2 Repository Structure
The Stack is organized as a Git repository[1] designed for forking and customization. The canonical repository structure reflects the layered architecture:
spec/ — Normative rules for how the stack is built, versioned, and validated. This directory contains the specification documents that define what conforming implementations MUST, SHOULD, and MAY do using RFC 2119/8174 keywords.
modules/ — Reusable legal, regulatory, licensing, financial, corridor, operational and governance building blocks. Each module is independently versioned and can be deployed separately from other modules.
profiles/ — Deployable bundles ('styles') that select modules, variants, and parameters. Profiles represent opinionated choices about which modules to include and how to configure them for specific use cases.
jurisdictions/ — Instantiated deployments that combine a profile with overlays and a lockfile. Each jurisdiction folder represents a specific deployment with its local customizations.
schemas/ — JSON Schemas for manifests, payloads, and data structures. These schemas enable automated validation of all configuration files.
apis/ — OpenAPI specifications for system interfaces. These specifications define how different components communicate.
registries/ — Signed indices of modules, interfaces, jurisdictions, and corridors. Registries provide authoritative listings of available components.
tools/ — Validator, builder, converter, and publisher utilities. These tools automate common development and deployment tasks including the msez CLI and vc utilities.
contexts/ — JSON-LD context definitions for semantic interoperability of Verifiable Credentials.
tests/ — Conformance test suite including schema validation, corridor agreement verification, and policy-to-code completeness tests.
3.3 Non-Negotiable Invariants
The following invariants MUST be maintained by all conforming implementations. These are derived from the core design principles and represent the minimum requirements for interoperability:
Semantic versioning for legal code: MAJOR indicates constitutional/structural changes; MINOR indicates new statutes/regulations; PATCH indicates clarifications/corrections that do not change legal meaning.
Modular independence: Modules can be deployed independently with explicit dependency declarations. No module may assume the presence of another module unless that dependency is declared in its manifest.
Jurisdiction overlays: Core modules provide defaults; jurisdiction folders contain overrides applied in deterministic order to produce reproducible builds.
Dual-format accessibility: Akoma Ntoso XML serves as the canonical source for legal text; automated rendering produces HTML/PDF/text for practitioners.
Protocol integration hooks: Legal provisions map to programmable primitives; every MUST clause in legal text has a corresponding policy-as-code implementation and conformance test.
Attestation streams enable regulator verification without exposing underlying private data through cryptographically-signed compliance proofs.
Regulator Console MUST be read-only, role-gated, logged/auditable, revocable, and sourced exclusively from attestation streams.
Corridor Definition VCs MUST bind corridor manifests through content hashes and cryptographic signatures.
Corridor Agreement VCs MUST reference the specific Corridor Definition VC payload and specify activation thresholds.
PART IV: MODULE SYSTEM SPECIFICATION
The module system is the core mechanism enabling the Stack's composability and upgradability. Every module follows a consistent structure that enables automated validation, dependency resolution, and deployment.
module_id: Globally unique identifier in the format domain/category/name (e.g., msez.legal.entity-registry)
kind: Module category (legal, regulatory, licensing, financial, corridor, operational)
license: SPDX license identifier for the module content
provides: Interface IDs and artifact paths that this module supplies
parameters: Typed configuration parameters with defaults and validation constraints
variants: Named policy forks that conform to the same interface but implement different approaches
4.2 Parameter System
Module parameters enable customization without modification of the underlying module. Parameters MUST be typed using one of the following types:
string: Free-form text values; integer: Whole number values; number: Decimal number values; boolean: True/false values; enum: Constrained set of allowed values; object: Structured data conforming to a JSON Schema; duration: Time periods in ISO 8601 format; money: Amount with currency code; jurisdiction_ref: Pointer to a jurisdiction definition.
Each parameter declaration includes the type, a default value (if applicable), validation constraints, and human-readable description. Parameters are resolved at profile assembly time and locked in the jurisdiction's stack.lock file.
4.3 Variant System
Variants represent alternative implementations of the same module interface. A module may provide multiple variants that differ in policy choices while conforming to the same interface contract.
For example, the dispute-resolution module provides three variants: arbitration-first (optimized for fast international enforceability), courts-first (optimized for strong public legitimacy), and hybrid (commercial arbitration combined with public law courts for constitutional matters).
Variant selection occurs at profile assembly time. All variants of a module MUST implement the same interface, pass the same conformance tests, and be interchangeable from the perspective of dependent modules.
4.4 Complete Module Taxonomy
The following taxonomy enumerates all modules in the Stack, organized by layer and category:
4.4.1 Legal Modules
Enabling Authority Layer:
legal/enabling-act — Zone enabling law or charter with variants for statute-based, executive-regulation-based, and treaty-anchored approaches
legal/zone-authority-charter — Authority governance structure with variants for independent authority and agency delegation models
legal/admin-procedure — Administrative procedure and appeals with variants for courts-appeal and tribunal-first approaches
Private Law Layer:
legal/civil-code — Core civil law (contracts, property, torts) with variants for common law, civil law, and hybrid approaches
legal/commercial-code — Commercial transactions with UCC-like and mixed variants
legal/dispute-resolution — Dispute mechanisms with arbitration-first, courts-first, and hybrid variants
Registries Layer:
legal/entity-registry — Corporate formation with MBCA-corp, LLC, DAO-LLC, UNA, and series-LLC variants
legal/land-registry — Real property with title-registration and deeds-registration variants
legal/security-interests — Secured transactions based on UNCITRAL model law with digital asset extensions
4.4.2 Regulatory Modules
regulatory/aml-cft — Anti-money laundering with risk-based, tiered-kyc, and travel-rule-ready variants
regulatory/sanctions — Sanctions screening with UN-EU-OFAC and local-list-plus variants
regulatory/anti-corruption — Anti-bribery based on FCPA/UKBA frameworks
regulatory/financial-supervision — Financial services oversight with financial-center-high-assurance, sandbox-first, and light-touch variants
regulatory/data-protection — Privacy rules with GDPR-like and local-law-mapped variants
regulatory/cybersecurity — Security requirements aligned to ISO 27001
regulatory/market-conduct — Market behavior and fairness rules
regulatory/consumer-protection — Consumer safeguards and disclosure requirements
4.4.3 Licensing Modules
Each licensing module includes model license conditions, application schemas, policy-as-code eligibility checks, ongoing compliance rules, reporting templates, and policy-to-code mappings:
licensing/csp — Crypto Service Provider licensing
licensing/emi — Electronic Money Institution licensing with domestic-only, cross-border, and program-manager variants
licensing/casp — Crypto Asset Service Provider licensing with exchange, broker-dealer, custody, staking, and asset-management variants
licensing/custody — Digital asset custody licensing with segregated and omnibus variants
licensing/token-issuer — Token issuance and ICO licensing
licensing/exchange — Exchange and trading platform licensing
licensing/fund-admin — Fund administration licensing
licensing/trust-company — Trust and fiduciary services licensing
licensing/bank-sponsor — Bank partnership and sponsorship licensing
licensing/psp-acquirer — Payment service provider and merchant acquiring licensing
licensing/card-program-manager — Card program management licensing
4.4.4 Financial Infrastructure Modules
financial/payments-adapter — Canonical payment interface with ISO 20022 mapping
financial/banking-adapter — Account lifecycle management interface
financial/settlement-adapter — Settlement finality interface for fiat and token rails
financial/domestic-payments — Domestic payment system integration with RTGS, ACH, and instant payments variants
financial/domestic-banking — Local banking integration with partner-bank, BaaS, and local-branch variants
financial/cards — Card payment integration with scheme-sponsor and program-manager variants
financial/open-banking — Open banking API integration
financial/safeguarding — Client fund protection with trust-accounts, segregated-accounts, and onchain-reserves variants
financial/treasury — Treasury operations with fiat-only and fiat-and-stablecoin variants
financial/fx — Foreign exchange operations
4.4.5 Corridor Modules
corridors/correspondent-banking — Traditional correspondent banking with USD, EUR, and regional variants
corridors/swift — SWIFT messaging and ISO 20022 cross-border payments
corridors/stablecoin-settlement — Stablecoin-based settlement with regulated-stablecoin and permissioned-network variants
corridors/open-banking — Cross-border open banking corridors
corridors/passporting — License and identity passporting with license-passporting, identity-passporting, and fund-crosslisting variants
4.4.6 Operational Modules
operational/regulator-console — Read-only regulator access interface
operational/attestation-analytics — Attestation stream analysis and reporting
operational/audit-logging — Comprehensive audit trail management
operational/incident-response — Security and operational incident handling
operational/data-classification — Data sensitivity classification framework
operational/transparency-dashboard — Public transparency reporting
4.4.7 Governance Modules
governance/core — Interoperability schemas (proposals, votes, delegations, tallies)
governance/binary-voting — Yes/no voting (quorum + threshold)
governance/ranked-choice — RCV/STV voting
governance/approval-voting — Approval voting
governance/score-voting — Score voting
governance/quadratic-voting — Quadratic voting
governance/quadratic-funding — Quadratic funding
governance/liquid-democracy — Delegation + vote resolution semantics
governance/zk-participation — Privacy-preserving participation patterns (eligibility proofs, anonymous voting)
4.5 Templating and Overlays
Legal documents and policy files support parameterized templates that are resolved at build time. The templating system enables customization without forking while maintaining deterministic builds.
4.5.1 Parameter Context
When building a jurisdiction deployment, the build system constructs a parameter context containing: profile parameters (from profile.yaml), jurisdiction parameters (from zone.yaml), module parameters (from each module's manifest), and environment parameters (build timestamp, stack version). Templates are resolved against this context using Jinja2-compatible syntax.
4.5.2 Overlay Application Order
Overlays are applied in deterministic order: base module content, then profile-specific patches (in order declared in profile.yaml), then jurisdiction-specific patches (in order declared in zone.yaml). Each patch is specified as a unified diff or RFC 6902 JSON Patch. The resulting content is reproducible from the same inputs.
4.5.3 Lockfile Semantics
The stack.lock file records the exact state of a jurisdiction deployment including: stack spec version, generation timestamp, zone identifier, profile reference, locked module versions with manifest and content hashes, applied overlay hashes, and corridor configuration including definition VC digests, agreement VC digests, signer information, activation status, agreement set digests, per-file payload hashes, and activation blockers.
PART V: CORRIDOR SYSTEMS AND CRYPTOGRAPHIC BINDING
Corridors enable cross-border connectivity between zones and between zones and the traditional financial system. Version 0.4.0 introduces cryptographically meaningful corridors through Verifiable Credential binding, enabling tamper-evident corridor definitions and commitment-aware activation semantics.
5.1 Corridor Architecture
Each corridor module defines a standardized way to connect zones for a specific type of cross-border activity. Corridor modules include:
Corridor manifest (corridor.yaml) — Metadata, settlement semantics, reconciliation rules, and references to security artifacts and Verifiable Credentials
Required attestations (required-attestations.yaml) — What proofs corridor partners must provide
Trust anchors (trust-anchors.yaml) — Authorized issuers and verifiers for corridor attestations
Key rotation policy (key-rotation.yaml) — How cryptographic keys are managed and rotated
Corridor Definition VC (corridor.vc.json) — Cryptographic binding of manifest to content hashes
Corridor Agreement VC(s) — Participant-specific acceptance and activation thresholds
Playbook documentation — Step-by-step deployment guide for corridor partners
Tradeoffs documentation — Explicit comparison with alternative approaches
5.2 Corridor Definition Verifiable Credentials
Corridor manifests are declarative. To make a corridor cryptographically meaningful (tamper-evident and verifiable), every corridor MUST also ship a Corridor Definition Verifiable Credential (VC) that binds the corridor.yaml manifest, trust-anchors.yaml, and key-rotation.yaml to the corridor's corridor_id using content hashes and a digital signature.
5.2.1 Required Structure
The Corridor Definition VC MUST conform to schemas/vc.corridor-definition.schema.json and MUST include:
SHA256 hashes for corridor.yaml, trust-anchors.yaml, and key-rotation.yaml as credentialSubject properties
At least one valid proof using did:key (offline verifiable) with proof type MsezEd25519Signature2025
Each signer MUST be listed in trust-anchors.yaml with allowed_attestations containing corridor_definition
5.2.2 Hash Computation
Content hashes MUST be computed deterministically:
- For JSON artifacts: SHA256 over RFC 8785 JSON Canonicalization Scheme (JCS) output.
- For YAML artifacts: parse YAML into an equivalent JSON data model, then compute SHA256 over RFC 8785 JCS output.
For Verifiable Credentials (VCs), the signing input hash MUST be computed over the VC payload excluding `proof`, canonicalized with RFC 8785 JCS. (This enables stable “definition payload” binding across re-issued signatures.)
For the definition VC payload hash used in agreement VCs, the hash is computed over the signing input (the VC payload excluding the proof field) using JSON Canonicalization Scheme (JCS) as specified in RFC 8785.
5.3 Corridor Agreement Verifiable Credentials
A Corridor Agreement VC captures participant-specific acceptance of a specific corridor definition and defines the activation rule for bringing the corridor online. This enables multi-party corridors where each participant can independently publish their acceptance while the system computes activation status from the aggregate.
5.3.1 Required Structure
A Corridor Agreement VC MUST conform to schemas/vc.corridor-agreement.schema.json and MUST include:
credentialSubject.corridor_id matching the corridor being accepted
credentialSubject.definition_payload_sha256 binding to the specific Corridor Definition VC payload (SHA256 of canonical VC payload excluding proof)
credentialSubject.participants enumerating all parties with stable identifiers (DIDs) and roles
credentialSubject.activation.thresholds describing required signatures by role for activation
5.3.2 Participant-Specific Agreement VCs
To support decentralized publication (each party can publish their own artifact) and clean revocation semantics, implementations MAY represent a multi-party corridor agreement as multiple agreement VCs. When using participant-specific VCs:
Each VC SHOULD include credentialSubject.party describing the specific party making the commitment
Each such VC MUST be signed by that party: at least one valid proof verificationMethod MUST resolve to credentialSubject.party.id (normalized to the DID without fragment)
credentialSubject.party_terms MAY contain party-specific addenda (fee schedules, operational SLAs, carveouts)
When multiple agreement VCs are used, validators MUST compare only the base subject fields for consistency: corridor_id, definition_payload_sha256, participants, activation, and any shared terms. Party-specific fields MUST be ignored for the base consistency check.
5.3.3 Status Lock
When multiple agreement VCs are used, agreement_vc_path MUST include at most one current VC per party DID (identified by credentialSubject.party.id). If the same party id appears more than once across all agreement VCs, validation MUST fail. This status lock ensures deterministic interpretation of each participant's current state.
5.4 Commitment-Aware Activation Semantics
5.4.1 Commitment Verbs
Participant-specific agreement VCs MAY include credentialSubject.commitment to express the party's current status. Standard commitment verbs include:
agree — Affirmative commitment indicating acceptance of corridor terms
pending — Non-affirmative state indicating review in progress
suspend — Non-affirmative state indicating temporary withdrawal
withdraw — Non-affirmative state indicating permanent withdrawal
5.4.2 Accept Commitments Configuration
Affirmative commitments are defined by credentialSubject.activation.accept_commitments, which defaults to ['agree'] when omitted. Only commitments listed in accept_commitments count toward activation thresholds. Commitments not in that list are considered non-affirmative and MUST block activation regardless of threshold satisfaction.
5.4.3 Threshold Evaluation
For activation threshold evaluation, validators MUST count unique parties that have provided a valid signature AND whose commitment is affirmative. When credentialSubject.party is present, the party id is counted; when party is absent, distinct signer DIDs are counted.
Example: A corridor requiring 2-of-2 zone_authority signatures will activate only when two distinct zone authorities have signed agreement VCs with affirmative commitments. If one zone authority has commitment: 'suspend', the corridor will not activate even if threshold arithmetic would otherwise be satisfied.
5.4.4 Activation Blockers
When activation fails due to non-affirmative commitments, the validation output includes corridor_activation_blockers listing human-readable strings identifying which parties and commitments are blocking activation (e.g., 'did:key:z6Mk...:withdraw').
5.5 Trust Anchors and Key Rotation
Trust anchors are the entities whose attestations are accepted within a corridor. The trust-anchors.yaml file specifies:
Anchor identifiers (DIDs) — Cryptographic identifiers for trusted issuers
Credential types accepted — Which attestation types this anchor can issue (corridor_definition, corridor_agreement, or other attestation types)
Verification methods — How to verify attestations from this anchor
Revocation checking — How to check if attestations have been revoked
Geographic scope — Which jurisdictions this anchor covers
Cryptographic keys used for attestation issuance and verification MUST be rotated according to policies defined in key-rotation.yaml:
Rotation frequency — How often keys MUST be rotated (maximum validity period)
Overlap period — How long old and new keys are both valid during rotation
Emergency rotation procedure — How to handle key compromise
Key ceremony requirements — What controls govern key generation
Archive requirements — How retired keys are preserved for historical verification
5.6 Verification Rulesets
The reference ruleset identifier is msez.corridor.verification.v1. A conforming validator MUST, at minimum:
1. Validate corridor.yaml against schemas/corridor.schema.json
2. Validate security artifacts against schemas/trust-anchors.schema.json and schemas/key-rotation.schema.json
3. Validate the Corridor Definition VC against schemas/vc.corridor-definition.schema.json
4. Verify the Corridor Definition VC signature(s) using cryptographic verification
5. Verify the Corridor Definition VC hash bindings match the on-disk artifacts
6. Verify the Corridor Definition VC signer authorization against trust-anchors.yaml
7. If agreement_vc_path is present:
a. Validate Corridor Agreement VC(s) against schemas/vc.corridor-agreement.schema.json
b. Verify Corridor Agreement VC signature(s)
c. Verify Corridor Agreement VC binding to the Corridor Definition VC payload hash
d. Verify Corridor Agreement VC signer authorization against trust-anchors.yaml
e. Enforce status lock (at most one VC per party.id)
f. Evaluate commitments against accept_commitments
g. Enforce activation thresholds
5.6.1 Reference CLI
The reference implementation includes the following CLI commands:
msez vc keygen — Generate Ed25519 key pairs for signing
msez vc sign <vc.json> --key <jwk> --out <signed.json> — Sign a Verifiable Credential
msez vc verify <vc.json> — Verify VC signatures
msez vc payload-hash <vc.json> — Compute SHA256 of signing input (payload excluding proof)
msez corridor vc-init-definition <corridor-dir> — Scaffold an unsigned Corridor Definition VC
msez corridor vc-init-agreement <corridor-dir> — Scaffold an unsigned Corridor Agreement VC
msez corridor verify <corridor-dir> — Verify corridor definition, agreement, and activation
PART VI: JURISDICTION MODULES
This section specifies jurisdiction-specific modules that adapt the core Stack to the legal and regulatory requirements of particular territories. Each jurisdiction module inherits from core modules and applies overlays specific to local law.
6.1 United States Jurisdiction Modules
US jurisdiction modules must account for the federal-state regulatory division and the unique position of tribal sovereigns. Each state module specifies:
Corporate law adaptations (based on each state's business entity statutes)
Money transmission licensing requirements (varying significantly by state)
Digital asset classification and treatment
Tax obligations and nexus rules
Consumer protection overlays
Securities blue sky law compliance
6.1.1 Wyoming Module
Wyoming represents the most crypto-friendly US jurisdiction with purpose-built legislation:
DAO LLC: Wyoming Statute 17-31-101 et seq. enabling decentralized autonomous organizations to operate as LLCs with algorithmic governance
SPDI Charter: Special Purpose Depository Institution framework enabling banks to custody digital assets without FDIC insurance
Digital Asset Exemption: Utility tokens meeting specified criteria exempt from money transmission
UCC Article 12: Commercial law provisions specifically addressing digital assets
6.1.2 Delaware Module
Delaware remains the premier corporate law jurisdiction with blockchain amendments:
DGCL Section 224: Authorization for corporations to maintain stock ledgers on blockchain
Series LLC: Enabling segregated series with separate liability
Court of Chancery: Specialized business court with deep corporate law expertise
Rapid formation: Same-day incorporation available
6.1.3 Puerto Rico Module
Puerto Rico offers significant tax advantages under Act 60:
Export Services: 4% corporate tax rate for qualifying export services
Individual Investor: 0% capital gains on Puerto Rico-sourced income
Residency Requirements: 183-day presence test for tax benefits
Banking Access: Full US banking system integration
6.1.4 Catawba DEZ Module
The Catawba Digital Economic Zone operates under tribal sovereignty:
DAO LLC: Regulation No. 003 combining LLC protection with DAO governance
UNA: Unincorporated Nonprofit Association for DAO structures
Digital Assets: Regulation No. 002 classifying digital assets as personal property
Banking: Code No. 004 enabling full banking charter authority
6.2 UAE Free Zone Modules
UAE free zone modules must navigate the distinction between federal law zones and common law zones (ADGM, DIFC).
6.2.1 ADGM Module
ADGM operates under English common law with comprehensive virtual asset regulation:
FSRA Licensing: Virtual Asset Framework with specific activity permissions
Capital Requirements: Risk-based capital adequacy for virtual asset activities
Custody Rules: Cold storage minimums, key management, insurance requirements
AML/CFT: FATF-aligned with travel rule implementation
RegLab: Regulatory sandbox for innovation testing
6.2.2 DIFC Module
DIFC provides the template for digital asset property law:
Digital Assets Law: Property classification and control rules
Coded Contracts: Smart contract recognition and enforcement
Law of Security: Digital asset collateral framework
DIFC Courts: Specialized digital dispute resolution
6.2.3 RAK DAO Module
RAK DAO specializes in decentralized organization structures:
DARe Framework: DAO Association Regime with emerging/mature tiers
Crypto Payments: Government fee acceptance in cryptocurrency
Banking Access: Pre-arranged partnerships for entity accounts
6.3 Offshore Financial Center Modules
6.3.1 Cayman Islands Module
Cayman provides fund domiciliation and corporate structuring:
Fund Structures: SPC, Exempted Limited Partnership, Unit Trust
Virtual Asset Framework: CIMA licensing for virtual asset service providers
Tax Neutrality: No corporate, income, or capital gains tax
FATCA/CRS: International tax reporting compliance
6.3.2 British Virgin Islands Module
BVI offers corporate confidentiality and flexibility:
BC Act: Business Company formation and governance
SIBA: Securities and Investment Business Act licensing
Virtual Asset Framework: FSC registration requirements
Economic Substance: Meeting substance requirements for tax treaty benefits
6.4 Charter City Modules
6.4.1 Próspera ZEDE Module
Próspera provides the most complete charter city reference:
Charter: Zone enabling document with 50-year stability guarantee
RCLC: Roatán Common Law Code (contracts, property, torts)
Tax Statute: Revenue, income, and sales tax framework
Financial Regulation A: RFSA licensing and supervision
Entity Registry: Corporate formation and governance
Regulatory Choice: Mechanism for selecting external regulatory frameworks
6.4.2 Gelephu Mindfulness City Module
GMC demonstrates hybrid framework adoption:
Commercial Law: Singapore law adoption
Financial Regulation: ADGM framework adoption
Reserve Assets: BTC, ETH, BNB as official reserves
Identity: Ethereum-anchored sovereign identity
Environmental: Constitutional forest coverage requirements
PART VII: CIVIC GOVERNANCE INFRASTRUCTURE
This section specifies modules for civic governance structures that enable democratic accountability within programmable institutions. These mechanisms draw from competitive topology theory and enable jurisdictions to implement various forms of distributed decision-making.
7.1 Democratic Accountability Through Competition
Traditional democratic institutions face a legitimacy crisis rooted in structural monopoly. The SEZ Stack addresses this by enabling competitive accountability: when citizens and economic activity can migrate between jurisdictions based on service quality, governments face continuous pressure to improve rather than episodic accountability through elections.
The governance modules implement this principle through three mechanisms: exit rights that operate at software speed through corridor connectivity, voice mechanisms that aggregate preferences efficiently through digital deliberation, and vote mechanisms that express preference intensity through quadratic and liquid democracy systems.
7.2 Voting Mechanisms
The Stack provides multiple voting mechanism modules that jurisdictions can deploy independently or in combination:
7.2.1 Binary Voting Module
Traditional yes/no voting for simple decisions with configurable quorum requirements, approval thresholds, and voting periods. Supports delegation and proxy voting.
7.2.2 Ranked Choice Module
Instant runoff voting for multi-candidate elections. Voters rank candidates in preference order; lowest-ranked candidates are eliminated iteratively until one achieves majority.
7.2.3 Approval Voting Module
Voters approve any number of candidates; candidate with most approvals wins. Reduces strategic voting incentives compared to plurality systems.
7.2.4 Score Voting Module
Voters assign scores (0-100) to each option; highest average score wins. Enables expression of preference intensity.
7.3 Quadratic Governance Systems
Quadratic mechanisms enable expression of preference intensity while preventing plutocratic capture.
7.3.1 Quadratic Voting Module
Voters receive credit allocations and can cast multiple votes on issues they care about, with cost increasing quadratically. The cost of n votes is n². This prevents narrow interest groups from dominating outcomes through concentrated voting while enabling those who care intensely to express that intensity.
Implementation considerations: Credit allocation mechanism (equal distribution, stake-weighted, reputation-weighted); credit refresh period; vote tallying (square root of total credits per option); Sybil resistance through identity verification.
7.3.2 Quadratic Funding Module
Public goods funding where matching funds are allocated proportionally to the square root of individual contributions. This amplifies projects with broad support over those with concentrated backing.
Implementation: Matching pool configuration; contribution caps; round timing; payout calculation; fraud detection for coordinated contributions.
7.4 Liquid Democracy Implementation
Liquid democracy enables dynamic delegation of voting power, combining direct democracy flexibility with representative efficiency.
7.4.1 Core Mechanics
Voters can vote directly on any issue or delegate their voting power to trusted proxies. Delegation can be topic-specific (healthcare, finance, environment) or general. Delegation is transitive: if A delegates to B and B delegates to C, A's vote flows to C. Voters can override delegation on specific issues by voting directly.
7.4.2 Delegation Registry
The Stack maintains a delegation registry recording: delegator identity (DID), delegate identity (DID), delegation scope (topic tags or 'all'), delegation weight (fractional delegation supported), effective period, and revocation status.
7.4.3 Vote Resolution
When a vote occurs, the system resolves delegation chains to compute final vote weights. Direct votes take precedence over delegated votes. Circular delegation (A→B→C→A) is detected and broken at the most recent delegation.
7.5 Zero-Knowledge Democratic Participation
Privacy-preserving governance mechanisms enable democratic participation without surveillance.
7.5.1 Eligibility Proofs
Voters can prove eligibility (citizenship, residency, stake) without revealing identity through zero-knowledge proofs. The proof demonstrates: possession of a valid eligibility credential, the credential was issued by a trusted authority, the credential has not been revoked, and the voter has not already voted (nullifier).
7.5.2 Anonymous Voting
Votes are cast through commitment schemes that hide vote content until the reveal phase. After all commitments are collected, voters reveal their votes with proofs that the revealed vote matches the commitment. This prevents early vote visibility from influencing later voters.
7.5.3 Verifiable Tallying
Vote tallies are computed through homomorphic aggregation or verifiable shuffling, enabling any observer to verify that the tally correctly reflects revealed votes without learning how any individual voted.
PART VIII: NETWORK DIFFUSION AND EXPERIMENTAL PROPAGATION
The SEZ Stack implements mechanisms for governance innovations to propagate across the deployed zone network. This enables jurisdictional competition at software speed, where successful experiments spread rapidly while failed experiments remain contained.
8.1 Parallel Experimentation Architecture
The Stack's modular architecture enables parallel experimentation across multiple dimensions simultaneously. Different jurisdictions can deploy different variants of the same module, creating natural experiments that reveal which approaches work best for different contexts.
8.1.1 Experimental Isolation
Module variants operate independently within their respective jurisdictions. A jurisdiction deploying the arbitration-first dispute resolution variant does not affect jurisdictions deploying the courts-first variant. Failures in one variant do not propagate to others.
8.1.2 Comparative Observability
The Stack's attestation streams enable standardized measurement across variants. Jurisdictions can compare time-to-resolution for disputes, compliance costs for regulated activities, entity formation velocity, and other metrics that reveal variant performance.
8.2 Module Update Propagation
When a jurisdiction develops an improvement to a module, the improvement can propagate to other jurisdictions through a structured process.
8.2.1 Proposal Submission
Improvements are proposed as pull requests to the canonical repository. Each proposal includes: the modified module content, semantic version bump (patch, minor, or major), changelog entry explaining the change, and evidence of operational validation in the proposing jurisdiction.
8.2.2 Review Process
Proposals undergo technical review (schema conformance, test passage, backwards compatibility analysis) and governance review (alignment with Stack principles, impact assessment). Approved proposals merge to the canonical repository.
8.2.3 Adoption Decision
Each jurisdiction independently decides whether to adopt upstream changes. The jurisdiction's lockfile records the current version; upgrading requires explicit action. Jurisdictions can: adopt immediately (fast-followers), wait for validation by early adopters, or decline adoption (maintaining current version).
8.3 Validation at Scale
As more jurisdictions adopt a module variant, confidence in its effectiveness increases. The Stack implements mechanisms for aggregating validation evidence.
8.3.1 Deployment Telemetry
Jurisdictions can opt to share anonymized telemetry about module performance. Telemetry includes: attestation volumes by type, processing times for standard operations, error rates and types, and resource utilization. Telemetry is aggregated across jurisdictions to identify patterns.
8.3.2 Success Metric Registry
The Stack maintains a registry of success metrics for each module type. Jurisdictions report metrics in standardized format, enabling cross-jurisdiction comparison. High-performing variants attract adoption; underperforming variants face replacement pressure.
8.3.3 A/B Testing Framework
Jurisdictions can run controlled experiments comparing variants within their deployment. Traffic splits route different entities or transactions to different variants. Statistical analysis identifies significant performance differences. Results inform both local optimization and proposals to the canonical repository.
8.4 Success Metric Instrumentation
Deployments should instrument and track the following key performance indicators:
Time-to-Incorporate: Days from application to issued certificate (target: < 1 day for digital-native zones)
Time-to-Bank: Days from incorporation to operational bank account (target: < 7 days with pre-arranged partnerships)
Time-to-License: Days from application to issued operator license (target: varies by license type and risk)
Compliance Automation Rate: Percentage of compliance checks performed automatically (target: > 90%)
Attestation Coverage: Percentage of regulated activities with attestation streams (target: 100%)
Regulator Response Time: Time to respond to regulatory queries (target: < 24 hours)
Corridor Activation Time: Time from agreement initiation to activated corridor (target: < 7 days)
Cross-Border Settlement Time: Time from initiation to final settlement (target: same-day for stablecoin corridors)
PART IX: ARTIFACT FORMATS AND SCHEMAS
The Stack uses standardized artifact formats to ensure machine processability, human readability, and long-term maintainability.
9.1 Legal Text Format: Akoma Ntoso
Legal source texts MUST use Akoma Ntoso (African-language term for 'linked hearts'), an OASIS standard XML vocabulary for legislative and legal documents. Akoma Ntoso provides semantic markup that enables machine processing while preserving the structural complexity of legal documents.
Source of Truth: Akoma Ntoso XML files in modules/*/src/akn/ are the canonical legal source. All other formats (HTML, PDF, plain text) are derived from these sources through automated rendering pipelines.
Element IDs: Every legal clause MUST have a stable eId (element identifier) that enables precise cross-referencing by policy-as-code rules, audit logs, and external systems. Element IDs follow the Akoma Ntoso naming convention and MUST NOT change between minor versions.
9.2 Policy-as-Code Format: Open Policy Agent
Regulatory requirements that can be expressed as machine-checkable rules MUST be implemented as Open Policy Agent (OPA) policies using the Rego language.
Policy Location: OPA policies are located in modules/*/src/policy/*.rego. Each policy file implements rules for a specific compliance domain.
Policy-to-Code Mapping: Every module with regulatory requirements MUST include a policy-to-code/map.yaml file that explicitly maps legal provisions (referenced by Akoma Ntoso eId) to OPA rule identifiers.
9.3 Attestation Format: W3C Verifiable Credentials
Attestations MUST use the W3C Verifiable Credentials data model. The Stack defines standard credential types including: KYCVerificationCredential, KYBVerificationCredential, AMLScreeningCredential, SanctionsCheckCredential, LicenseStatusCredential, CapitalAdequacyCredential, MSEZCorridorDefinitionCredential, and MSEZCorridorAgreementCredential.
9.4 Schema Inventory
The following JSON Schemas are defined in the schemas/ directory:
module.schema.json — Module manifest validation
profile.schema.json — Profile bundle validation
zone.schema.json — Zone instantiation validation
corridor.schema.json — Corridor manifest validation
attestation.schema.json — Attestation envelope validation
policy-to-code.schema.json — Policy mapping validation
stack.lock.schema.json — Lockfile validation
trust-anchors.schema.json — Trust anchor registry validation
key-rotation.schema.json — Key rotation policy validation
vc.schema.json — Base Verifiable Credential validation
vc.corridor-definition.schema.json — Corridor Definition VC validation
vc.corridor-agreement.schema.json — Corridor Agreement VC validation
vc.proof.jcs-ed25519.schema.json — Ed25519 proof validation
PART X: MASS PROTOCOL INTEGRATION
The SEZ Stack serves as the 'constitutional layer' for Mass Protocol—the programmable compliance infrastructure that enables Smart Assets.
10.1 The Five Primitives
Mass Protocol operates through five programmable primitives:
10.1.1 Entities
The Entities primitive manages the lifecycle of legal persons within the zone, mapping to the entity-registry module. It encompasses entity types (LLC, Corp, DAO), formation requirements, KYC rules, governance structures, and reporting obligations.
10.1.2 Ownership
The Ownership primitive manages property rights and their transfer, mapping to the civil-code/property module. DIFC's Digital Assets Law 2024 provides the legal foundation for digital asset ownership.
10.1.3 Financial Instruments
The Financial Instruments primitive manages the issuance, transfer, and lifecycle of regulated financial products, mapping to the financial-services module with ADGM's Virtual Asset Framework as the regulatory template.
10.1.4 Identity
The Identity primitive manages verification and attestation of participant identities, mapping to the entity-registry/kyc module. It supports progressive identity verification through tiered attestations.
10.1.5 Consent
The Consent primitive manages agreements, approvals, and governance decisions, mapping to the governance module. Corporate governance actions flow through this primitive with attestations recording approvals.
10.2 Smart Assets and Legal Modules
A Smart Asset carries compliance, identity, and operational intelligence directly. When a Smart Asset moves between jurisdictions, the programmable compliance layer automatically reconciles differing legal requirements. Both jurisdictions run the SEZ Stack with jurisdiction-specific overrides; the protocol computes the intersection of permissible actions and enforces compliance at both endpoints.
10.3 Regulator Console Specification
The Regulator Console provides supervisory access while maintaining participant privacy. Access is governed by strict requirements: read-only (query but not modify), role-gated (restricted by role with granular permissions), logged/auditable (every query generates an audit event), revocable (access can be terminated immediately), and sourced from attestations (queries attestation outputs, not raw private data).
PART XI: CONFORMANCE AND VALIDATION
Conformance to the Stack specification is verified through automated testing.
11.1 Conformance Levels
Level 1 — Schema Conformance: All configuration files validate against their JSON Schemas; all legal texts validate against Akoma Ntoso schemas; all API implementations conform to OpenAPI specifications.
Level 2 — Behavioral Conformance: Module dependencies resolve correctly; profile assemblies produce deterministic outputs; overlays apply in specified order; lockfiles are reproducible.
Level 3 — Policy Completeness: Every MUST clause in legal text has a corresponding policy check and/or attestation event; policy-to-code mappings are complete and correct; attestation types cover all regulated activities.
Level 4 — Corridor Integrity: Corridor Definition VCs correctly bind manifests; Corridor Agreement VCs correctly bind to definitions; activation thresholds evaluate correctly; commitment semantics enforce properly; status lock prevents duplicate party entries.
11.2 Test Suite Architecture
The conformance test suite includes:
test_schemas.py — Schema validation tests for all configuration files
test_akoma_schema_validation.py — Akoma Ntoso schema validation for legal texts
test_corridor_security_artifacts.py — Trust anchor and key rotation validation
test_corridor_vc.py — Corridor Definition VC validation
test_corridor_agreement_vc.py — Corridor Agreement VC validation including commitment and threshold tests
test_policy_to_code_completeness.py — Policy mapping completeness verification
test_profile_semantics.py — Profile assembly and variant selection tests
PART XII: DEPLOYMENT PROFILES
Profiles are opinionated selections of modules, variants, and parameters that represent deployable configurations.
12.1 Minimal MVP Profile
The minimal-mvp profile provides the smallest viable deployment for rapid government pilots: enabling-act, entity-registry, basic dispute-resolution, risk-based AML/CFT, basic data protection, CSP and sandbox CASP licensing, payments adapter interface, and regulator console stub.
12.2 Digital-Native Free Zone Profile
Optimized for jurisdictions prioritizing digital asset businesses: full legal operating system with DAO entity types, complete AML/CFT and market conduct, CSP/CASP/custody/token-issuer licensing, payments and banking adapters, stablecoin settlement corridors, full regulator console with attestation analytics.
12.3 Digital Financial Center Profile
Optimized for institutional credibility: full legal operating system with commercial law emphasis, high-assurance financial supervision (ADGM-like), full licensing stack, complete banking and payment integration, correspondent banking/SWIFT/passporting corridors, full operational stack with transparency dashboard.
12.4 Charter City Profile
Comprehensive governance infrastructure including all digital-financial-center modules plus: land registry, comprehensive security interests, environmental/labor/building codes, land use planning, utility coordination, constitutional framework, citizenship/residency, and electoral systems.
PART XIII: IMPLEMENTATION ROADMAP
13.1 Phase 1: Foundation (Months 1-3)
13.2 Phase 2: Module Development (Months 4-8)
13.3 Phase 3: Jurisdiction Deployment (Months 9-12)
First jurisdiction fork and validation, corridor activation, contribution guidelines, documentation launch, commercial licensing discussions.
13.4 Phase 4: Network Expansion (Months 13+)
Additional jurisdiction deployments, corridor network densification, governance module deployment, experimental propagation infrastructure, success metric instrumentation.
APPENDICES
Appendix A: Source Reference Library
Próspera ZEDE Legal Code
Base URL: https://pzgps.hn/
Próspera Charter: Charter-of-Prospera-TS-CAMP-Certified.pdf
Tax Statute 2019: Prospera-Tax-Statute-2-1-38-1-0-0-1.pdf
Roatán Common Law Code: Roatan-Common-Law-Code-§2-3-4-0-1-0-1001.pdf
Financial Regulation A: Prospera-Financial-Regulation-A-3-2-164-0-0-0-1.pdf
UAE Financial Centers
ADGM FSRA Virtual Asset Framework: adgm.com/setting-up/financial-services-permission
DIFC Digital Assets Law 2024: difc.ae/business/laws-and-regulations (Law No. 2 of 2024)
RAK DAO: rakdao.com
Open Standards
OASIS LegalDocML (Akoma Ntoso): oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=legaldocml
W3C Verifiable Credentials: w3.org/TR/vc-data-model/
W3C Decentralized Identifiers: w3.org/TR/did-core/
Open Policy Agent: openpolicyagent.org/
ISO 20022: iso20022.org/
Appendix B: Glossary
Akoma Ntoso: OASIS standard XML vocabulary for legislative and legal documents.
Attestation: Cryptographic proof that a compliance requirement has been satisfied.
Corridor: A standardized connection enabling cross-border activity between zones.
Corridor Agreement VC: Verifiable Credential capturing participant acceptance and activation thresholds for a corridor.
Corridor Definition VC: Verifiable Credential binding corridor manifest to content hashes with cryptographic signature.
Profile: An opinionated selection of modules configured for a specific use case.
Smart Asset: An asset that carries compliance, identity, and operational intelligence directly.
Trust Anchor: An entity whose attestations are accepted within a corridor.
Variant: An alternative implementation of a module that conforms to the same interface.
Zone: A deployed jurisdiction running the Stack with specific overlays.
Version 0.4.0 (December 2025): Added Corridor Agreement VC with commitment-aware activation semantics, participant-specific agreement VCs, status lock enforcement, activation blockers, agreement set digests, expanded jurisdiction modules covering 56 US jurisdictions and 33 UAE free zones, civic governance infrastructure (quadratic voting, liquid democracy, zero-knowledge participation), network diffusion and experimental propagation mechanisms.
Version 0.3.0 (October 2025): Added commitment-aware corridor agreement, party status lock, authoring CLI scaffolding (vc keygen, corridor vc-init-definition, corridor vc-init-agreement), agreement-set digest, lockfile integrity fields.
Version 0.2.0 (September 2025): Added Akoma Ntoso schema validation, zone.yaml schema with lockfile semantics, expanded licensing families, corridor trust anchors and key rotation policies, conformance test suite for policy-to-code completeness, Corridor Definition VC binding.
— END OF SPECIFICATION —