Guide for people#

This guide is for anyone who wants to use or understand a balanced circle, with no programming. Every strange word is explained the first time it appears, and again in the glossary. If you are a developer or an AI agent, read the guide for AI agents and developers instead.

Status. The rules below are definitions 0.3.0, a draft (round 5). Two pilot circles run on test infrastructure. Where something is decided, built, only proposed or not yet built, the text says so. Last checked 27 Oct 2026.

Before you start: your key, your profile#

Everything you do in a circle is signed with your private key. Think of it as a pen that only you own.

• Your key has two halves. The private key (in the Lana apps it is called the BSA WIF) stays with you, never public, never typed into a website you do not trust. The public key is the number of your account. It is written as 64 characters of HEX (digits 0–9 and letters a–f), for example b2b2b2b2b2b2b2b2b2b2b2b2b2b2b2b2b2b2b2b2b2b2b2b2b2b2b2b2b2b2b2b2. This public number is called your BSA ID.
• People are always shown by HEX, never by the longer "npub" form, so that every program and every page agrees on one spelling.
• Your profile (Nostr KIND 0) holds your name and picture. It is mandatory and minimal. The circle's ledger never copies your name; it knows you only by your key. You can change your name at any time.
• Whoever knows your public key can see your balance and your payments. That is by design: in a circle nothing is hidden.

This site has no forms and never asks for a key. Never type a private key into any page except the founding page of your own circle (see founding).

How a person joins a circle#

A circle has one currency (EUR, USD or GBP in version 0.3.0) and one ledger. You can be a member of one circle at a time.

1. Find the circle. Ask the circle for its link or QR code, or look it up in a directory (for example the first Balance directory), by name or by its birth number (the fingerprint of its founding charter, see the glossary).
2. Check how the circle admits people. Its Circle Heart chooses one of three ways, and may combine the last two with the first:
   • Open: anyone may join by themselves. In an open circle only a key that signed in with a verified Lana profile joins on its own (decision E-12, a protection against crowds of fake keys).
   • Invitation only: a member gives you a special invitation. It is used once and by default is valid for 7 days.
   • A limit on members with a waiting list: when a place frees up, the first person on the list joins automatically. An excluded person is always decided by the Heart.
3. If you come from another circle, bring your reference (see leaving). A circle admits a person who was in another circle only with that circle's reference. A person who was never in any circle needs none (this part is still a proposal).
4. Sign "join". The circle's computer (its node) books your joining in the ledger. The ledger entry carries only your key, never a name.
5. Sign your home. Your member home (Nostr KIND 30916) is a short public note, signed by you, that says "this key belongs to this circle since block h". A witness of the circle confirms it. Joining is complete when you have signed your home, a witness has confirmed it, and the joining is booked.
6. You are in. Your wallet is now an account line in the circle's ledger. It starts with a balance of 0 and a wave of 0. Your wave grows when you receive (see the numbers).

What the directory then shows about you: your profile, your circle, and the block you joined at. It never shows documents or bank details.

How to leave, with a reference#

Moving to another circle is done with a reference (Nostr KIND 43921). It is your "good-standing letter" from the circle you leave. Without it, the new circle does not take you.

1. Say "I want to leave" (you sign a leave act).
2. Be settled. The ledger issues the reference by itself, only when:
   • your balance is not below zero (you are not "in minus"). If you are in minus you must first pay back to zero, or someone else may pay your minus for you (a payment into your account, never above zero). Even an excluded person must settle before moving;
   • you have no open OWN process (a community conflict-handling process, see the glossary). If you have an open OWN process, no reference is issued, even without any debt, until a Heart member closes it.
3. The reference is issued once. It contains a short report: the projects you published, the projects you worked on, the step (wave) you built, and the fact that you have no open OWN process.
4. Join the new circle with it. The new circle opens the same step for you. The new circle sends the same amount to the old circle's community, and the old circle closes your old account and returns that amount to where it first came from. Both communities stay exactly as they were: "the matter cancels out". If the old circle does not confirm, the new circle takes the step back.
5. One use only. Each circle's ledger records every reference it has granted a step to and never accepts the same reference again (decision E-13).
6. You take your plus along (this part is a proposal): a key that left may send its positive balance to another circle. A minus stays with the old circle; a circle covers a minus only when a member has died and the Heart closes the account.
7. A Heart member who leaves loses the Heart seat. The last Heart member cannot leave until the Heart adds another.

If you are excluded (see what the Heart can do), your account is frozen for the exclusion time (by default 3 months). After it you may apply again; the Heart decides.

How a founder founds a circle#

A circle is born from one signed founding charter (the found act). The charter's fingerprint is the circle's birth number (also called the circle id), its name for ever. These are the steps used for the pilot circles. They are run by the founder on the circle's own founding page.

The rule about who may found (decision E-8): only a member of an existing circle may found a new circle. All circles grow from the first one. Each key founds one circle only. The founder therefore leaves the old circle with a reference first. (The two pilot circles are root circles created by the project team, without a parent.)

Steps:

1. Set up the box. A circle is "a circle in a box": a copy of the app on its own server with one settings file (a circle code, a name, one currency, the page address, and the creator's HEX), its own ledger and its own box relay. This part needs a server and a person who runs it.
2. Open the founding page of your own circle (it is at /found on the circle's own address). It is in Slovene and English. Never use any other site for this.
3. Fill in the charter:
   • the circle's name, short code, currency (fixed for ever), time zone and the morning hour (the pilot uses 4, that is 04:00 local time);
   • the Circle Heart: you are the first member; add at least three more HEX keys, one per line. Leave k empty and it becomes 3. k is how many Heart members must agree on a change. A project needs at least three Heart members in favour, so a circle with fewer cannot fund any project;
   • the relays: the first line is the circle's own relay and stays as it is; the others can be temporary at the start;
   • the circle settings (time limits, gravity rates and so on). For a short trial you can shorten the minimum vote and the cross-circle check to one day; otherwise keep the defaults;
   • the parent circle: leave it empty for a root circle; otherwise name the parent, its first block and your reference.
4. Sign. Type your private key into that page only; it stays in your browser tab. Press Prepare the founding charter. The page shows the birth number. Check it.
5. Write the circle key on paper. A new circle key is made in your browser and shown once. Write it on paper and keep it safe. It is not the circle's name; it only stamps the circle's public record, and the Heart can replace it later.
6. Tick the box and press Found the circle. The result is the circle's birth number and its first block. Write both down: together they are the circle's anchor, by which anyone can tell the real circle from a fake.
7. Sign the circle record (Nostr KIND 30910) on the circle's /circle-record page, with your founder key and the circle key from the paper. Both stay in your browser. The record is the circle's entry in the directory.
8. Appear in a directory. In the first Balance directory the operator names the circles it lists, and its collector checks the circle's whole chain from block 1. A signed record alone does not list a circle. See the directory page.
9. Start. The first block gives the circle's reserve a start of 1,000.00 in its currency, taken from a keyless account called origin (which goes 1,000.00 into minus so the sum stays zero). Invite the first members. No project can pass until the Heart has at least three members.

What a Circle Heart member can do#

The Circle Heart is the group of people who created the circle and tend it. A single person in it is a Heart member. The circle's members do not elect the Heart; whoever disagrees can leave and found a better circle (decision E-2). The Heart adds and removes its own members.

What the Heart cannot do: it cannot move money on its own (the reserve, the project wallets and the world accounts have no key; only a public rule that every witness recomputes moves money there). It cannot change how money and gravity are computed. It cannot hide anything, because every act is public.

The numbers: balance, wave, cap, gravity, debt#

Your account is one line of numbers. All amounts are whole numbers of the smallest unit of the circle's currency, for example cents. 100000 means 1,000.00.

A small story. The circle has just started. Ana has a balance of 0 and a wave of 0, so she cannot pay yet.

1. A project pays Ana 100.00 for her work. She receives 100.00, her wave grows by 100.00, and the same 100.00 flows on into the reserve. Ana: balance 0, wave 100.00. She can now pay up to 100.00.
2. Ana pays Bojan 60.00. Ana: balance −60.00, wave 100.00 (she can still pay 40.00). Bojan receives 60.00, his wave grows by 60.00, and 60.00 flows on to the reserve. Bojan: balance 0, wave 60.00.
3. Nobody holds a plus, so gravity takes nothing. The circle's sum is zero: Ana −60.00 is balanced by the reserve and the other accounts.

Gravity in words. Gravity only touches a plus. It is computed from the average balance between two mornings, not from the moment of the cut:

• the part of the plus up to the size of your wave flows gently: 330 millionths a day, about 1 % a month;
• the part above your wave flows strongly: 22,840 millionths a day, half in about 30 days;
• for the first 60 days after your first receipt, the part above the wave also flows gently (the transition);
• if you give nothing for 183 days, your whole plus flows strongly (resting).

Example: wave 1,000.00 and a steady balance of 1,500.00 means a plus of 1,500.00. The first 1,000.00 loses about 0.33 a day, the other 500.00 about 11.42 a day: together 11.75 a day. The exact whole-number rule, with the same example, is in the AI guide.

These are a circle's start settings. The Heart can change them only within the limits of the definitions, never retroactively, and gravity can never become stronger than these values without 30 days of notice.

Projects, and how they pass#

All community money goes to projects. A project is a publicly described purpose with an amount, for example work that serves everyone. Nobody holds the community's money: the reserve and every project wallet have no key.

1. Any member proposes a project and, at the moment of publishing, sets how long the vote runs. The shortest allowed vote is 72 hours and the longest 14 days (both are circle settings). The length cannot be changed afterwards.
2. Every member votes, for or against. A vote against carries a short public reason. Your newest vote counts; you can change it until the vote ends.
3. It passes only if at the end nobody is against and at least three Heart members are for (not counting the proposer's and the recipient's own vote). Otherwise it falls, and may be proposed again, changed. This is "all for, or it falls".
4. The recipient must consent. Then the project opens and starts to receive. If it has not opened within 30 days of publishing (the default), it ends.
5. It receives in order. Money flows into projects oldest first until each is full. What flows in is what gravity takes each morning, and the part of every receipt that grows someone's wave.
6. When full, it pays the whole amount to the doer. The doer's wave grows as with any receipt, and the same amount flows on to the next project or the reserve. So paying a project does not use up the community's money.
7. A project that does not fill in 90 days (the default) ends and its money goes back to the reserve. The Heart may also close a receiving project, with public notice.
8. Raising the circle's step outward (the amount the community adds beyond its borders) is a project like any other, decided by the same vote.

What is public, and for ever#

Almost everything. In a balanced circle nothing is hidden.

• Public: every payment with its amount and purpose, who paid whom (by key), every balance, wave and gravity line, every project and vote (reasons for against votes included), every act of the Circle Heart, every exclusion and its reason, every member (by key) and every daily seal with the full snapshot of all accounts.
• Never in the ledger: names, bank details, documents. Free-text fields in the apps warn you: "public for ever; do not write names, personal or bank data."
• Never public anywhere: private keys. A key is an account and stays with its person.
• For ever: the records live on relays in several copies and the circle's relays refuse deletion (KIND 5 and KIND 62 are refused). A block, once written, is never removed. If a person deletes their profile or home, nothing changes in the ledger.
• Anyone can check: every account can be recomputed by anyone from public data. A circle can be rebuilt from its relays alone; the circle proves this in public every morning.

Frequently asked#

Is my balance private? No. Anyone who knows your public key can see it.

Can the directory take my money or change my balance? No. A directory only stores and finds signed records. The truth about a balance is the circle's own chain.

What if a server dies? The ledger is on several relays and the circle is rebuilt from them. Apps are only readers.

Can I be in two circles? No, one at a time. Moving needs a reference. (One person with two keys would be two accounts; the ledger cannot tell. This is known and open.)

What about banks? The bank layer (BalanceID and the Compliance Passport) is a separate future layer. Today a circle holds no bank data and no money enters or leaves it from outside. See BalanceID.

Where do I read the full rules? In the reference: the ledger, governance, relays, currencies, safeguards, BSA ID and new circle.