The MAZE-Bank

0What the MAZE-Bank is

The MAZE-Bank is not a bank. It is the shared memory of a circle: a chronicle of deeds. No money circulates inside — deeds are recorded, confirmed and brought full circle.

The bank is a service on the MAZE (the self-addressing net on balanced ternary), alongside the services Weather, Leefomgeving and Support. It lives at maze.swarp.nl/bank, with an API under /api/bank/*.

There are two domains and one border. The maas (the closing ring) is the domain without money: there, chains of deeds close. The euri-domain is the domain of money: a maas without closure, where chains never return in phase. The border is where the two touch without mixing. The contribution number measures how much of a circle's life already falls within closure; the Weather service measures how dangerous the domain is that stayed outside. Those two numbers mirror each other — that is the yardstick of the whole.

1Foundation

The register is the trit. Every standing between two members is −1, 0 or +1. Minus: received, not yet reciprocated. Plus: done, not yet answered. Zero: rest. These are not possessions but standings of tension in the net; a balance is never a person's property.

A process is a passage — a transition between standings that goes through zero. Seven passages form the standard alphabet (the jump −→+ only via 0); a nine-alphabet (direct jump allowed) is the explicit alternative configuration, frozen at a circle's opening.

Nothing is exchanged. A mutual service moves no substance; a standing changes. Money is potential-action: the act cut loose from who, what, where and when, stored as a context-free claim. All the known problems of money (hoarding, long chains, top-down steerability) are properties of that context-lessness.

Health is switching. Fixed complementary roles — permanent giver, permanent receiver — are the pathology. Health is the standing that keeps alternating. One exception is not pathology but a normal state: the member whose body or life permanently asks more than it can give. That one-sidedness is need, not a frozen role; decay carries it, and no mechanism may signal, rank or show it to the member.

Language rule. The unit of registration is a sentence with a verb and context, never a noun with a number. Every translation of a deed into a number at the front turns it into potential and snuffs out the social emotion the system runs on.

2The system

The maas & decay

The unit is not the account but the maas: a ring in which chains of deeds close. Membership is a measurement, not a sign-up — you belong to a maas because your notes close with the others'. The circle is read off the entries (strongly connected component, Tarjan-SCC), not declared; its maximum size is a closure depth, not a headcount.

Every entry is a receipt with idempotency (unique per maas + receipt-id). The chain-at-the-knot (a Holochain reference, no blockchain): each receipt carries a sha256 hash over its content plus the predecessor hash of both members — a hash chain per member, exportable and independently verifiable. Both sides sign (HMAC); a single signature is a pledge (does not count in the balance) until the other side confirms.

Decay slowly brings every open standing back to zero: whoever holds credit starts to draw, whoever owes starts to give, and any credit no one draws completes itself as a gift to the circle. Ageing money as arithmetic, not as morality. Decay applies only to the open standing — never to the memory: a deed stays in the chronicle forever. The decay rate is the circle's one periodic governance decision. Never interest, in any wrapping.

Surety instead of collateral

A long-lived holding can carry n counter-signatures of guarantors (the GLS model). On non-closure the tension runs first along the guarantors, only then a governance layer up. No collateral, no interest.

The border & the four streams

The border is a context, not a line. It is recognisable by one feature: the value field. Inside the maas there is no euro value field (one mutual service = one, seeds=1); at the border stands the money. The euro exists only as a border post — registered, never exchanged. Convertibility empties the ring; the border is an entry, not an exchange rate, and there is no door for outside money into the maas.

The border fund carries four separate streams — not a balance but four registers, each tied to a societal force:

buy (koop)

euros against a performance from outside, here and now (the supplier, the venue).

lend (leen)

euros that make possible what someone can do — surety capital, covered by guarantors instead of collateral.

gift (schenk)

euros without return — the most productive money; money dies in the gift.

levy (roofgeld)

the imposed fourth: VAT, payroll tax and other remittances. This stream the circle does not choose; the state enforces it. That is why it must be correct first — the enforceable test of the whole border accounting.

The money itself stands on the euro side, in the cooperative shell (coöperatieve jas) at a licensed institution (a cooperative U.A. is a fitting example — not a design choice). Which institution holds the account is a supplier decision of the circle; the bank brand never appears at the front. Between two maases, border posts are paired and netted (hawala-style); only the residual becomes a single euro post.

Reconciliation, classification & correction

A MAZE booking is no proof that a euro payment happened, and a bank statement does not prove why it was paid. The bank reconciles the two — without ever moving money itself:

• Reconciliation. You paste a bank statement (CAMT.053 or CSV — the export every bank offers; no live connection needed). The bank lays the lines beside the open border posts and proposes matches on amount, direction and date. A role confirms each match by hand; the border post then gets a bank reference, a date and the status confirmed (or rejected). Nothing is booked automatically.
• Dual classification. Beside the MAZE stream, each border post carries an external fiscal category — VAT, payroll tax, premium, bank charges, gift or other. The MAZE label is the internal meaning; the fiscal category is the reading for the bookkeeper. They stand apart.
• Correction. A wrongly booked border post is not erased — the chronicle never forgets. A reversing entry cancels the economic meaning; the old post stays visible. Exactly the four-concepts principle: the event stays, a new event corrects.

Measurement & the three numbers

Three circle numbers per cycle, each against its own cycle average: stock per member, concentration (share of the busiest members) and circulation (how often a standing goes around before it rests). The trigger is never a level but the speed of joint build-up. Dangerous signature: stock rising and concentration rising and circulation falling — the circle freezes into fixed roles; the well-ordered phase is the herald of collapse, not the chaotic one.

A fourth measurement line per member: does the member's trit alternate over time, or is it stuck (frozen giver/receiver)? A one-sided standing that is need does not count here as freezing. The contribution number reports per cycle how much of the maas's life still had to go through the border versus what closed in notes — the progress measure of withdrawal from the money system. All measurement stays behind the fold; the numbers appear only in the circle conversation, never per member at the front.

Governance (sociocracy)

Circle governance by consent (no reasoned objection) and rotating roles — the sociocratic practice of Boeke/Endenburg, taken here not as doctrine but as proven governance. The treasurer role lapses: the bookkeeping is the entry.

• Roles rotate by consent election (open argument about who fits the role now, followed by consent), for a term.
• Decisions are adopted in the absence of a reasoned objection; the periodic decision — the decay rate — runs along here. One objection with a reason blocks; once removed, the decision can pass.
• The double linking: each circle is connected to the ring above it by two people — the serving role (chosen downward) and a delegate (chosen upward), both full participants in the consent of the ring above. So no layer can overrule a lower circle outside its own delegation.

The escalation ladder: what does not close in one layer activates the layer above and becomes more expensive there — member → guarantors → circle → ring of circles → border. Above the circles stands one role without power: the observer, who reads the numbers and speaks when a signature accelerates. If the observer gains power, the role has failed. This governance form follows the same nested cross-scale structure as the panarchy behind Weather and the scale dial.

Need & capacity netting

A need enters the maas as an open request (open bon), not an application: a question-sentence with a verb and context ("needed: groceries, three times a week"), one-sided in form, recurrence one-off/weekly/ongoing, no end date, no value field. There is no intake, indication or test — the request is the indication. The open request becomes one ordinary note with counter-signature per delivery and stays open until the asker closes it.

The closing brokerage matches: it lays the open request beside the chronicle (who delivered this verb before), the offer (see below), capacity and the blueprint, and proposes it to at most three members — as a warm tip, never as a list or duty. At the front it never shows a number and never why; the ground per proposal ("did this before", "offered this") is auditable behind the fold, so the circle can check the algorithm concentrates no power.

What the own maas cannot do — nursing, lifting, daily presence — escalates as a capacity question, not a money question. Beside the pairing of euro border posts there is deed-netting: maases settle among themselves in delivered services, weighted per rung (each step is more expensive). Netting seeks closure in notes first; only the un-nettable remainder touches the border posts. Netting closes standings, erases no notes.

Appointments & offers

People rarely note a deed after the fact, but they make appointments beforehand: a roster, a care schedule, "I'll come Tuesday". An appointment is the same pledge the bank already knows, with a day added — deontically O(x,y,A,t). The helper's side is signed when it is recorded; the person helped confirms fulfilment with the "correct" tap (mirror of the ordinary deed, where the helper confirms). The bank sends nothing itself: on the day it shows the keeper an "awaiting confirmation" list with a reusable confirm link, which the person shares themselves. The date is the moment of asking, never the moment silence becomes breach — there is no breach.

A pasted roster, list or message goes through one extraction front: a language model turns free text into candidate appointments that the person confirms line by line. Extraction is candidate, never a booking; the source (the roster) stays outside the bank. So every existing plan connects without an input screen per source type.

Beside the request (the open note) there is the offer — permission P: "I can drive on Friday", availability without duty. Same form as the open note (a sentence, no number, no forced date), but no obligation. Request and offer feed the closing brokerage from both sides: an explicit offer weighs heavily and appears as the ground "offered this".

3The form

The note as a sentence. "Hans helped Lea with the roof, Tuesday." Who-did-what-for-whom-where-when; no number, no unit. The receipt, signatures and direction the engine handles behind the fold.

The chronicle. All notes chronologically, searchable and filterable — reads as the story of the circle. Re-reading is the reward and the reason to return. The chronicle never forgets.

The ring. One drawing: who closes with whom, the dotted arrow for what is not yet round, chalk that slowly fades. Movement, never positions. Click a person and you see the cross-section of the chronicle — the life-course record.

The scale dial. Steps household → street → neighbourhood → municipality → region → country → world, plus the professional/founding step. The faces stay identical at every step; only the knot shifts: persons → maases → rings of rings. Outermost step: the outside weather as a background layer.

The entrance: doing is the door

No circle-founding as a first step. The entrance is a single deed. Note a deed without a circle, and the circle comes to life by itself: the bank opens a maas with a key that goes to the noter's device (the keeper). The maas is first called "your circle" and is revealed as a discovery the moment the notes first close. The note generates a confirmation link; the other person taps "correct" without an account — that is the counter-signature, always a real act of the other.

Behind the fold & what is not

Behind the fold (circle matters): alphabet 7/9, decay rate, surety, linking with another circle, own key, country & region, the border and border fund, the governance, the coverage lens. At the front, at no scale: no numbers, balances, scores, rankings or totals; no badges, NFTs or tokens; no conversion of notes into points or money; no bank brand; no dunning language. The doing-layer is the only door.

4Relations with the other services

5The time services

The banking functions that move time exist in the MAZE-Bank, but not as a product and nowhere at the front. This chapter hangs the familiar names on the mechanisms.

Saving

= chronicle + decay. The chronicle remembers who helped and never forgets; reserving for later is a holding with counter-signatures, not a sum in an account. Hoarding is impossible — decay brings every held standing back to zero.

Investing

= guaranteeing. Return does not exist (never interest). What remains is lend-money via the guarantor community — the yield is that the chain closes — and gift-money, where decay itself is the giving route.

Insuring

= ladder + netting + border fund. The maas is the risk bearer for everything that exists in deeds; a setback one member cannot bear is an open request, carried by the circle. No premium, no policy, no actuary — decay does the insurance work.

Pension

= from saving to fellow-feeling. Not hoarded capital but a position in a circle that closes: the chronicle of a life of deeds, the ongoing open request for what the body can no longer do, and the border fund for what must remain euros.

The coverage lens makes this visible without becoming a product: behind the fold the bank shows one member's coverage picture — their ongoing requests, their life course, and that the border fund collectively carries the euro remainder. Need is not risk: no one is classified, and the one-sided chronicle of a chronically ill or disabled member is a normal state of the maas.

6The rules

Every screen choice is tested against these rules. They are not enforced by a check but by the form of the system — often by an absence.

1. 1Verb over noun — every registration is a sentence; never an amount as the core.
2. 2No number at the front, at no scale.
3. 3Order of the emotion loop — first safety and grip, then attraction, then only word and image; never open with explanation.
4. 4Recognition, never dunning — allowed end-emotions: thanks, recognition, relief, insight.
5. 5The switch stays real — the counter-signature is always an act of the other.
6. 6Toolmaker in the data — each member their own chain; no world ledger, no total, no centre.
7. 7Decay is homecoming, never cost or punishment; no interest, ever.
8. 8Repetition to the engine, play to the human — everything that counts closes and settles behind the fold.
9. 9The doing-layer is the only door — the front lets you do, it does not explain.
10. 10One form, all scales — the scale dial changes the knot, never the faces; no total at any scale.
11. 11Need is neither debt nor risk — one-sided chronicles are a normal state; the request is the indication; no member ever stands personally at the border.
12. 12The value field is the border — absent inside the maas, the money at the border; every border crossing carries the note as context, without a rate; the four streams stay separate.

7Manual — how to use it

Everything begins with a single deed. There is nothing to found and nothing to fill in that you did not already do or see yourself.

1. Note a first deed. Open maze.swarp.nl/bank and fill the sentence: who helped whom, with what ("two hours moving house", "a lift"). Click Note — and begin the book. The circle arises by itself; keep the key that appears — on another device it is the only access.
2. Let the other tap "correct". Send the confirmation link to whoever helped. One tap without an account is the real counter-signature; only then does the deed count. "No, not correct" makes no quarrel of it — the circle discusses it.
3. Open requests. Under Questions in the circle you open a request ("weekly groceries"). The bank itself proposes who could do it — based on who proved it before, never with a number. Whoever steps up delivers; the asker confirms.
4. View the circle and the world. The ring shows who closes with whom. With the scale dial you switch from the circle to the world map. Click a person for their life course.
5. Under "the machine beneath" (with the key): decay in plain words, the risk on four layers (circle/region/country/world), the country and region choice, the border fund with the four streams, the governance, and a member's coverage.
6. Governance (sociocracy). Assign roles, open a proposal for consent, give "no objection" or a reasoned objection, and adopt the decision once there is no objection left. Link the circle to the ring above with the double linking.
7. The border (circle matter). Book into the border fund per stream — buy, lend, gift, or levy (VAT/payroll tax). The euro overview is the document you bring out with the key for a licensed institution; inside the circle no money circulates.

8API reference

All paths under /api/bank. Responses are JSON. Read routes of a closed circle and all circle matters (the border, the governance) require the sleutel (key); noting a deed does not — then the circle arises by itself. Field names are in Dutch as in the running code.

9Status & limits

Everything above is built, tested and live at maze.swarp.nl/bank. The engine and API are fixed; the existing tests are green; the chronicle never forgets a deed; netting closes standings and erases no notes.

Deliberately left open

• The pipes map (per street, which money-pipes — rent, energy, wage, pension — hang on the euri-domain with what delay). A finer-grained vision than the current regional weather; it needs per-street data that does not exist yet. The calibrated regional weather covers the same goal more coarsely and works now.
• The acute Leefomgeving layer. The Leefomgeving signals turn out to be official feeds (publications, roadworks, tenders), not citizen need — showing them as a distress pulse would mislead. The real need-stream is the requests for help, which already come in as open requests.

The two steps outside the code

These two lie with the principal and are not a build task:

1. The prior consultation with the tax authority about the levy stream and the qualification of the notes (no legal tender, no recoverable balances), so a first circle does not run into a fiscal surprise.
2. The conversation with a licensed institution — which holds the border account of the cooperative shell. The ask to that institution is small: run one payment account; the four streams are an administrative division on the circle's side. The link itself is already built on the circle's side: you import the bank statement (CAMT.053 or CSV) and reconcile the border posts by hand — the bank need supply nothing beyond its ordinary export.

The first gate remains the falsification test: one existing circle, one financial year, a three-numbers report in advance — if the report says nothing the treasurer did not already know, the instrument has failed and says so itself.