The MAZE-Bank

Layer 2 — for the thinker0What the MAZE-Bank is enduring

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 Financial 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 Financial Weather service measures how dangerous the domain is that stayed outside. Those two numbers mirror each other — that is the yardstick of the whole.

Layer 2 — for the thinker1Foundation enduring

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.

Layer 2 — for the thinker · the model2The system enduring

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.

The fifth measure, at the rim (essay The Bank That Keeps No Money, 19 Sept 2026, §XII): the external closure ratio — what share of a circle's deeds ever touches another circle or the border (coupling posts, bon-netting, border posts)? A real circle leaks outward constantly; a collusion ring closes only with itself. The signature "closed loop" = high internal circulation with almost no rim contact (from 20 deeds). It is a reading, not a sanction; the observer says it, the circle decides. Re-measurement by consent: an adopted decision "hermeting: a, b" asks that subgroup that their deeds also close outside the group; whoever has no confirmed deed with someone outside and no border post drops out of the circle reading — as a measurement error, not a punishment — and counts again as soon as such a closure appears. Joining is a measurement: a name in a deed is "registered"; a "member" is whoever has at least one confirmed deed with another — the counter-signature of the first deed is the endorsement. And need is never shown to the member: the names of the fourth measurement line appear only in the reading with the circle's key; without it, only the count.

The own face (§XI, "one net, many faces"): the words of the sentence — helped / with / asks for — are settable per circle (/gezicht, with the key); the deep layer (trit, bon, chain, decay, netting) stays identical for all circles, so circles can couple without a shared currency. Endorsement of a bon (mobility without drift) is a design memo (memo-endossement.md, hashed), not yet code. The falsification gate is a script (node maze/bank/falsificatie.mjs <maas | csv>): question fixed in advance — does the report say something the raw bookings do not show? — with "no test yet" below 20 deeds.

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 Financial 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 no reminders (since 13-9 it may send one mail, on the noter's request and in their words): on the day it shows the keeper an "awaiting confirmation" list with a reusable confirm link, which the person shares themselves or has mailed once. 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".

Layer 2 — for the thinker · the form3The form enduring

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.

Layer 4 — for the connector4Relations with the other services enduring

Layer 2 — for the thinker5The time services enduring

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.

Layer 2 — for the thinker · the invariants6The rules enduring

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.

Layer 1 — for the user7Manual — how to use it tracks the code

Everything begins with one deed. There is nothing to found and nothing to fill in that you did not already do or see. The bank at maze.swarp.nl/bank has three faces that alternate — the start screen, the "is this right?" screen for whoever opens a link, and the circle — and under the circle one fold, "the machine underneath", for whoever needs it. Top right the NL·EN toggle; the bank is always dark. Without a key you can read a public circle, confirm a link and note a first deed (the bank then gives you a key itself); with the circle key you can do everything; with two keys you settle between circles or couple to the ring above. A closed circle cannot be read without a key.

startWho helped whom?the start screen

• One sentence with three fields: helper helped receiver with what ("two hours of moving", "a lift"). The sentence also remembers the time if you name it; no balance is added. Click Note — and begin the book: the circle comes into being by itself and you get the key — keep it, on another device it is the only access. See an example opens a sample circle, read-only.
• Fold set up a circle deliberately: name, key (at least eight characters), scale (family, street, neighbourhood, municipality, region, country, world, professional — then also licence holder and legal form), and the tick for a closed circle.

kloptIs this right?what the receiver of the link sees

• The sentence from the book, who noted it, their own words as a quote, and what is expected: one tap. Yes, that is right puts the deed confirmed in the book; No, not right makes no quarrel of it, the circle discusses it and the deed does not count until it is clear. No account, no reminder. For an appointment the screen asks whether it happened. An expired link says so; an already confirmed one takes you to the circle.

kringThe circlethe third face

• At the top the name (or "your circle"), the scale and "🔒 the book is sound ✓" when the chain is valid; the scale buttons the circle ↔ the world. One-time tips: welcome, the discovery when the receipts first close a ring, a brokerage tip (who could help whom) and the observer, who only speaks when the signature accelerates.
• The outside weather: one risk sentence with the layers region, country, Europe, world (calm to storm), read from Financial Weather and the regional yardstick. With key: what does the observer see? — role-fixed members and whether the signature is healthy.
• The ring: members on a circle, gold arrows for every deed, a dotted arrow for the broker's proposal. Click a person and the book filters on that name — the life-course file.

noteerNote a deedwith key

• Dropdowns helper and receiver, a free field for what, and the tick I am the helper myself — then the helped one confirms: whoever notes signs their own side, the other confirms. With new name you add someone. Note then opens the sharing block.

deel-blokSharing the confirmation link

• The link is visible. Enter the other's e-mail address and edit the prepared text ("Hi …, I noted in our book that … Is that right? One tap is enough"). Three buttons: send by mail (one mail from the book, then nothing more — no reminder), I shared it myself, copy text + link. If mailing fails you get a mailto link with the reason.

afsprakenAppointmentswith key

• Paste a roster, schedule or list and click extract the appointments; every candidate appears as an editable line (helper, receiver, what, date) with record. Nothing is recorded without your click. Open appointments sit above with a share link; fulfilment is confirmed with one tap.

vragenRequests in the circlewith key

• An open request for help is never a debt. Open a request (asker, with what, once / weekly / ongoing); the bank proposes who could do it, based on who proved it before, never with a number. I will do this records who delivers and gives a confirmation link at once; close removes the request.

aanbodOffers in the circlewith key

• What you can do, without obligation: "I can drive on Friday". Offerer and what; an offer is not a promise and can be closed.

boekThe bookthe chronicle

• Every deed as a sentence with date; older lines fade like chalk. Search by name or word. Per waiting deed the chain: noted → mailed to whom / shared yourself / not yet shared → opened → waiting for whom; for a closed deed "confirmed on". Actions: share the link again, swap the side (wrong side?), for a confirmed deed share as proof (the verifiable receipt) and ask a witness.
• Under the book: check this chain (recomputes all deeds) and share as proof (a printable document).

wereldThe worldthe second scale position

• Your own circle in the middle, other circles around it, couplings as lines (dotted = still open), the background tinted by the outside weather. Click another circle to open it read-only; click the middle to go back.

blauwdrukA member's life blueprintunder the fold · with key

• The identity the net computes from date and place of birth (HD, PoC, Shen): pick a member, enter date and place, compute. Once, then frozen.

euro-overzichtAt the border: the euro overviewunder the fold

• No money circulates inside the circle; what could not close internally stands as a euro border post at the edge. Show the euro overview: amounts out, in, net, the border pot with contribution figure, the four streams (buy, lend, give, plunder = VAT and payroll tax), couplings with other circles, and the cooperative coat. With key: export as document and text for the licence holder.

cooperatieve-jasThe cooperative coatwrite-once · with key

• Licence holder and legal form, recorded once; afterwards shown in the euro overview.

grenspotThe border potwith key

• A shared euro function for what the circle cannot close in deeds (medicines, aids). Book a filling or spending per stream (buy, lend, give, plunder) with context, amount and the signing role. Bookkeeping: the money sits with the licence holder, never linked to a member.

reconciliatieReconciliation with the bankwith key

• Paste a bank statement (CAMT.053 or CSV); propose matches links amounts to open border posts, you confirm. Per post the status (open, confirmed, rejected), the external fiscal category (VAT, payroll tax, premium, bank costs, gift, other) and correct as a counter-entry — the old post remains. The bank never moves money itself.

bonnettingService to another circlewith key · settling with two keys

• What your own circle could not do, another circle may deliver, settled in services, not money. Record it (other circle, which service) and settle with the keys of both circles: the services cancel out, or a residue remains with advice.

land-streekCountry & regionwith key

• Which business climate the circle reads as its outer layer (Netherlands, Germany, France, US) and your region (province or COROP) for the regional weather; the regional layer exists for the Netherlands only.

bestuurGovernance (sociocracy)with key · coupling with two keys

• Roles by consent (role, holder, term), proposals for consent with no objection, objection (with reason) and take the decision — a decision passes only without a reasoned objection. Couple to the ring above: the double link with serving member and delegate, both keys required. Show a member's coverage: open requests, life course and border pot of one member. No boss; the observer has no power.
• Key change: key lost or stolen? The circle changes or revokes a member's key; old signatures stay valid, the change is logged. At the bottom: give the circle a name and forget this circle on this device.

Layer 3 — for the builder8API reference tracks the code

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.

Layer 3 — for the builder9Status & limits tracks the code

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.