25 tests · adversarial

Pressure tests

Each test takes the architecture's claims and tries to break them. Scenario, cost, prevention, mitigation, residual risk — for each.

• Test 1 · regulatory

  A regulator characterizes DAO benefit units as securities

  SEC, CFTC, or foreign equivalent argues that DAO benefit units are investment contracts under Howey, securities under Reves, or pooled investment vehicles. Action: cease-and-desist; investor letters to beneficiaries; market reputational damage.

• Test 2 · regulatory

  Earth-Credit-denominated distributions characterized as securities transaction

  Foreign or US regulator characterizes in-kind distribution of Earth Credits to beneficiaries as a securities transaction.

• Test 3 · regulatory

  A coalition entity attempts to acquire DAO positions

  Exchange, Fund, or Market Maker pressures Landseed to allow it to hold DAO positions for liquidity provision or similar.

• Test 4 · regulatory

  Landowner ecological-condition destruction (catastrophic reversal)

  A landowner deliberately destroys ecological condition mid-term. Outstanding Earth Credits associated with the property may be invalidated.

• Test 5 · legal

  Property-category mismatch in a target jurisdiction

  Counsel maps the NRD-lite (VECR) to what they believe is a recognized property category, but local courts or recording offices treat it as a personal contract instead. The instrument therefore does not bind successors and cannot be enforced as a property right against subsequent landowners.

• Test 6 · legal

  Wrapper entity jurisdiction changes its DAO LLC statute adversely

  Vermont, Wyoming, or the Marshall Islands repeals or weakens its DAO LLC statute. Existing wrapper entities now have ambiguous legal personhood and uncertain enforceability of smart-contract-as-operating-agreement provisions.

• Test 7 · legal

  Cross-jurisdictional dispute between beneficiaries

  A Madagascar property's DAO (wrapped in Marshall Islands) faces an internal dispute. A Madagascar-resident beneficiary sues in Malagasy courts while Landseed argues choice of law is Marshall Islands per the wrapper operating agreement.

• Test 8 · legal

  Methodology IP not licensable to successor

  If Landseed PBC fails as a corporation, the methodology, registry, and brand have no institutional home. Without an irrevocable IP license to an independent Foundation, methodology stewardship freezes and the registry stops issuing credits.

• Test 9 · operational

  Smart contract bug compromises a Tier 2 deployment

  A vulnerability in a governance template module (M1–M6) is exploited in a deployed Template C or F DAO. An attacker drains the treasury, freezes governance, or manipulates membership records.

• Test 10 · operational

  A DAO member attempts to sell their benefit unit

  A beneficiary in financial distress attempts to monetize their governance position by offering it on a peer-to-peer basis outside the DAO's permitted membership succession procedures.

• Test 11 · operational

  Audit firm continuity failure

  A key smart contract auditor (e.g., the firm that audited Template C modules) goes out of business or loses the key personnel who performed the original audit, making ongoing audit coverage and re-audit for updates unavailable.

• Test 12 · operational

  Hostile cross-DAO governance attack

  An adversarial actor identifies a flaw in template governance logic and attempts to coordinate an attack across multiple DAOs that share the same template, exploiting the similar flaw in each instance simultaneously.

• Test 13 · strategic

  the co-architect pulls back mid-execution

  After partial implementation, the co-architect's institutional legal instincts surface a deal-breaker — proposing a return to NRD v1.2 or to a different architecture, creating a leadership misalignment that stalls the project.

• Test 14 · strategic

  Template C deployment found paternalistic by outside review

  An indigenous-rights advocate reviews a Template C deployment and concludes it reproduces colonial governance patterns despite following the co-design framework — for example, Landseed-defined FPIC checkpoints override community-defined protocols.

• Test 15 · strategic

  Landowner acceptance complexity

  At the kitchen-table conversation, a landowner is presented with the structure — wrapper LLC, multi-sig treasury, DAO governance, Earth Credits issued separately — and responds with skepticism or walks away from the deal.

• Test 16 · external

  Landseed PBC itself fails

  Landseed PBC runs out of capital, faces a legal judgment, or otherwise winds down as a corporation before the Methodology Foundation is fully operational and before all buffer pool custody has been transferred.

• Test 17 · phase-9 · argentina

  Argentina cepo cambiario reimposition freezes cross-border flows

  A Milei-successor administration or political crisis causes BCRA to reimpose strict capital controls. Argentine-resident beneficiaries cannot receive USD distributions from the wrapper LLC, and the local fundación or representante legal cannot convert USDC to ARS at the official rate without BCRA clearance.

• Test 18 · phase-9 · bangladesh

  Bangladesh Bank crypto enforcement extends to local NGO partner

  BFIU issues enforcement guidance characterizing USD wire transfers from Singapore-entity wrappers to NGOAB-registered NGOs as predicate to crypto-facilitation, based on the origin of funds being traceable to a stablecoin treasury on a public blockchain. The local partner NGO receives a show-cause notice and suspends operations.

• Test 19 · phase-9 · bangladesh

  CHT Land Disputes Commission invalidates a pre-existing CLB convention

  A Bangladesh Chittagong Hill Tracts deployment proceeds on land claimed by a community under an existing tenure arrangement. The CHT Land Disputes Resolution Commission later determines the parcel falls within a competing customary claim, voiding the community's tenure basis and the wrapper-held service contract.

• Test 20 · phase-9 · madagascar

  Madagascar CLB process stalls; concurrent cyclone destroys multiple deployments

  A new Madagascar administration announces a GELOSE convention review, putting CLB conventions in limbo for 18+ months. Concurrently, a cyclone strikes the eastern coast causing greater than 30% ECI loss across multiple properties in the same geographic corridor, triggering simultaneous buffer pool draws from a concentrated cluster.

• Test 21 · phase-9 · ecuador

  Ecuador Rights-of-Nature plaintiff challenges the VECR or buffer pool as commodification

  An Ecuadorian indigenous-rights or environmental organization (e.g., Acción Ecológica or a CONFENIAE federation) files an acción de protección or Article 71 constitutional claim arguing that a recorded servidumbre ecológica underlying an Earth Credit issuance — and specifically the buffer pool's retirement mechanics — commodifies nature's rights and violates Articles 71–74 of the 2008 Constitution.

• Test 22 · phase-9 · eu-regulatory

  MiCA reclassifies Earth Credits; cross-jurisdiction characterization conflicts

  EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation enters full effect and guidance characterizes Earth Credits as asset-referenced tokens or e-money tokens. Simultaneously, the same Earth Credit is characterized as a commodity by the CFTC, a security by Argentina's CNV, and an asset-referenced token by EU regulators — three conflicting characterizations for one instrument.

• Test 23 · phase-9 · modules

  M5 attestation hook failure during catastrophic event; multi-sig signer compromise

  During a force-majeure ecological loss qualifying for a buffer pool draw, the registry's attestor key is unavailable or compromised, so notifyInvalidation cannot be delivered to affected property DAOs' M5 modules. Separately, the methodology guardian multi-sig is compromised, and an attacker uses guardian veto power to block all governance proposals during a critical period.

• Test 24 · phase-9 · foundation

  IRS denies Form 1023; Foundation cannot assemble board; methodology stewards refuse IP license

  One or more of the Methodology Foundation formation plan's three named risks materializes: the IRS denies the 501(c)(3) application; the board candidate pool cannot produce five to seven members willing to accept fiduciary duty; or Alex or the co-architect as methodology stewards declines to execute the IP license to the Foundation.

• Test 25 · phase-9 · vermont-archive

  Vermont recording office rejects NRD-lite; methodology archive integrity failure

  On pilot deployment in Vermont, the Town Clerk declines to record the VECR instrument because its novel features — hash incorporation by reference, methodology-update-by-hash mechanism, and Earth Credits reversion carve-out — are not recognized recording forms under 10 V.S.A. §§821–824 in that clerk's office practice. Separately, one of three methodology archives suffers a loss event, and cross-referencing the surviving two archives reveals a hash discrepancy.