Keynes and Schumacher conceptualize Bancor.
Public internet receipt // January 3, 2014
Before Circle, there was BANCOR.
Circle’s original name and brand was reportedly supposed to be Bancor. The receipt is still online. Now the Phoenix brings $BANCOR home to Arc.
LIVE SOURCE The Inner Circle TwoBitIdiot · Jan 3, 2014 · medium.com ↗
10 BANCOR // 2018
THE LOST NAME RISES
6 dates // 7 public sources // 1 lost name
Lore you can verify yourself
Two lost artifacts // one onchain return
THE IDEA HAD A NAME.
THE FUTURE HAD A FACE.
In the 1940s, Keynes gave an unbuilt world unit a name: Bancor. In 1988, The Economist imagined a future world currency with a face: the Phoenix. Then a 2014 receipt reported that Circle itself had been supposed to carry the Bancor name. We joined the two lost artifacts. The Phoenix is now the face of Circle’s lost name—and $BANCOR is rising on Arc.
1940–42BANCOR IS NAMED
1988PHOENIX WEARS 2018
2014CIRCLE RECEIPT
2018USDC LAUNCHES
NOW$BANCOR ON ARC
KEYNES // THE NAME THE ECONOMIST // THE PHOENIX CIRCLE // THE LOST IDENTITY ARC // THE RETURN
01
The receipt that started everything
medium.com/@twobitidiot
“Circle’s original name and brand was not actually supposed to be Circle, but Bancor.”
Author today
Ryan Selkis · Messari founder
Read the original ↗
The original name did not vanish. It left a URL.
CIRCLE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE BANCOR.
Before Circle launched, TwoBitIdiot—Ryan Selkis—published The Inner Circle. The article says the company’s original name and brand was supposed to be Bancor, a name drawn from Keynes’s proposed supranational unit of account. Circle chose Circle. The internet kept the other name alive.
PUBLISHEDJAN 03 2014
BYLINETWOBITIDIOT
STATUSSTILL ONLINE
The company launched.
The lost name waited for its chain.
02
The year on the coin
The visual the lost name never had
THE ECONOMIST DREW THE FUTURE AS A PHOENIX.
Its 1988 world-currency hypothesis pictured a Phoenix rising above burning banknotes. The coin around its neck was stamped 2018. Thirty years later, Circle officially launched USDC on September 26, 2018. We gave the Phoenix one job: carry Circle’s lost Bancor name out of history and onto Arc.
TWO LOST ARTIFACTS.
ONE ONCHAIN RETURN.
10 PHOENIX
2018
CIRCLE LAUNCHES USDC
The symbolPhoenix.
The nameBancor.
The homeArc.
03
Circle says the name out loud
Six years after the receipt
JEREMY SAID “BANCOR” AGAIN.
In 2020, Jeremy Allaire asked whether a synthetic global digital currency could “become a Bancor” on Circle’s official The Money Movement. The company had dropped the name. The idea was still in the room.
Watch the official episode ↗
THE MONEY MOVEMENT
EP. 23 // 2020
“Does this… become a Bancor?”
— Jeremy Allaire, discussing a synthetic global currency concept
The Phoenix rises above old money with 2018 on the coin.
Selkis reports Circle was supposed to be Bancor.
Circle launches USDC in the Phoenix year.
Jeremy says “Bancor” on Circle’s program.
The Phoenix carries $BANCOR home to Arc.
04
The return address
Circle kept the vision.
The internet kept the name.
Arc completed the circle.
$BANCOR
RISES ON ARC.
Circle built a stablecoin-native Layer 1 with USDC as native gas. The company that left BANCOR behind built the exact chain where its lost name could return. The Phoenix did the rest.
Read Circle’s Arc announcement ↗
ARC CONTRACT
CA: 0xc55a4468a3e1c2dfe58dddad0188c71d5dffd740
Verified official BANCOR contract on Arc.
$BANCOR
A forgotten name.
An impossible return.
An impossible return.
Circle left one name behind.
ARC BROUGHT IT HOME.
Keynes named it. Selkis documented it. The Phoenix marked the year. Jeremy said it again. Arc gave it a home. Now the lost name is liquid.