Bancor

Circle's original name was Bancor.

[Bancor @Bancorarc]

Well, that clears up the biggest question around the $BANCOR receipt.

Ryan Selkis just confirmed where the 2014 information came from:

“Their Series A investor told me that over lunch.”

So the claim that Circle’s original intended name & brand was BANCOR wasn’t some random Medium speculation it came from inside Circle’s investor circle during the company’s earliest days.

And there’s another piece that makes this even more interesting:

Jeremy Allaire has already confirmed Circle had another name ready before they secured https://t.co/QXjzL1CkvM but when asked what it was, he said we’ll have to wait for the book.

Ryan says his source was a Circle Series A investor.

Jeremy says the lost name will be revealed in his book.

The lore just got a lot harder to dismiss. 🐦‍🔥

[Ryan Selkis 👤 @Selkis_2028]

@TonyHawkerss @spiraling_stars @Bancorarc Their series A investor told me that over lunch. Not a big deal either way.

[Bancor @Bancorarc]

The gates to the official $BANCOR Telegram are now open.

Enter the archive. Discover the lore. Join the community carrying Circle’s lost name home to Arc.

Join the rise.
https://t.co/XxSbNPsNyL

[Bancor @Bancorarc]

BANCOR wasn’t just a cool name.

It comes from John Maynard Keynes 1940s proposal for a supranational world currency a neutral unit designed to settle value between nations without relying on any single country’s money.

That’s why the name made so much sense for early Circle.

Circle was built around the idea of global digital money, open settlement rails and moving value across borders.

The name was dropped.

The idea behind it never really was. 🐦‍🔥
$BANCOR

[Bancor @Bancorarc]

The Phoenix was never just a bird.

It was the symbol of a new world currency rising from the ashes of the old fiat system money without borders, above the currencies governments had controlled for generations.

That’s exactly why it represents $BANCOR

An idea for global money that was buried before its time.

Now the name rises again.

BANCOR doesn’t crawl out of history.

It rises from it. 🐦‍🔥

[Bancor @Bancorarc]

Most memes are invented first and lore gets added later.

$BANCOR is the opposite.

The name was already sitting in early Circle history.
The global currency idea was already there.
Jeremy later came back to Bancor publicly.
Then Circle built USDC and eventually Arc.

We didn’t manufacture the story.
We found it.
The lost name is onchain now. 🐦‍🔥

[Bancor @Bancorarc]

Hey @jerallaire in January you said the name Circle nearly launched under would have to wait for the book.

Ryan Selkis wrote in Jan 2014 that Circle's intended original name & brand was Bancor.
Did Ryan spoil that chapter 12 years early? 👀

[Bancor @Bancorarc]

Ryan Selkis @Selkis_2028 isn’t “some random guy.” He’s the co-founder of Messari and Circle’s own website has Jeremy saying they go back 10 years and that he still shares Ryan’s Dec 2013/Jan 2014 early-Circle article with people.

Here is official circle web : https://t.co/D9OAo7SxfR

[Bancor @Bancorarc]

Ryan Selkis @Selkis_2028 isn’t “some random guy.” He’s the co-founder of Messari and Circle’s own website has Jeremy saying they go back 10 years and that he still shares Ryan’s Dec 2013/Jan 2014 early-Circle article with people.

Here is official circle web : https://t.co/D9OAo7SxfR

[Bancor @Bancorarc]

The lore behind $BANCOR gets wild when you line up the dates.

In 1988, The Economist imagined that within 30 years the world could be using a global currency the Phoenix, shown rising above burning fiat currencies and stamped 2018.

Exactly 30 years later, in 2018, Circle launched $USDC.
And Circle’s original name & brand was reportedly supposed to be BANCOR named after Keynes’ idea for a supranational global currency.

Years later, Jeremy Allaire himself was still discussing whether digital currencies could eventually “become a Bancor.”

That’s why the Phoenix fits $BANCOR so well.

A global currency symbol rising above the old fiat system, dated 2018 the same year Circle launched USDC.

Not claiming prophecy. Just documented history lining up almost perfectly.

1988 → Phoenix → 2018 → USDC → BANCOR → Arc. 🐦‍🔥

The Economist:
https://t.co/tuvBxAZvyZ

Original Circle/Bancor receipt:
https://t.co/bJsAgdbT9k

USDC launch:
https://t.co/ArnyTIhZAW

Jeremy on Bancor:
https://t.co/z9DojoFpgU

[Bancor @Bancorarc]

People are mixing up an early project/code-name with Circle’s intended public brand.

Jeremy Allaire @jerallaire himself described Tendren as a code name.

Separately, Ryan Selkis reported in Jan 2014:

“Circle’s original name and brand was not actually supposed to be Circle, but Bancor.”

That distinction matters.

Tendren = early project / code-name
BANCOR = reportedly intended brand
Circle = final brand

BANCOR wasn’t just another internal project name it was specifically reported as the identity Circle was supposed to launch under.

Receipt:
https://t.co/bJsAgdbT9k

$BANCOR

[Bancor @Bancorarc]

You’re mixing up three different things.

Jeremy himself called Tendren a code-name.

Circle’s actual incorporated entity was Boston Internet Financial Services, which was renamed Circle in Oct 2013.

Bancor is a separate claim: Ryan Selkis reported in Jan 2014 that Circle’s original intended “name and brand” was Bancor and that Allaire’s team later opted for Circle.

So:

Boston Internet Financial Services = legal name
Tendren = code-name/project
Bancor = reportedly intended brand
Circle = final brand
Original Bancor receipt:
https://t.co/bJsAgdbT9k

Circle corporate-name record:
https://t.co/ddTUFPITfO

Jeremy + Ryan discussing that original early-Circle article:
https://t.co/I31hVrHRmk

[Bancor @Bancorarc]

Small clarification because some early Circle history is getting mixed together:

Circle had other names tied to early projects and experiments.

BANCOR is different.

Circle original intended name & brand was BANCOR before Jeremy Allaire and the team ultimately chose Circle.

That’s the lore behind $BANCOR

Not an old project name.

The name Circle itself was reportedly supposed to carry.

Before Circle, there was BANCOR. 🐦‍🔥

https://t.co/bJsAgdbT9k

[Bancor @Bancorarc]

@Chain0xs @cryptokans @arc @circle They are different things. Tendren was an early project name. Bancor was reportedly the intended name and brand for Circle itself.

[Bancor @Bancorarc]

Why BANCOR matters.

BANCOR wasn’t just some random name Circle considered.

In Jan 2014, Ryan Selkis reported:

“Circle’s original name and brand was not actually supposed to be Circle, but Bancor.”

And the meaning behind that name is the real lore.

Bancor was John Maynard Keynes’ proposal for an international currency used to settle value between nations money designed to sit above individual national currencies in a new global monetary system.

That lines up almost perfectly with what Jeremy Allaire says Circle was thinking about from the beginning.

Jeremy has said that when Circle was being founded in early 2013, they were already exploring ideas around new global currencies, SDRs, common currencies and using public blockchains to connect traditional money globally.

Then in 2020, Jeremy went even further.

While discussing a future synthetic global digital currency made from fiat currencies and potentially Bitcoin, he literally asked whether it could:

“become a Bancor.”

Now look at what Circle became.

A public company NYSE: CRCL.
The issuer of USDC.
Building global stablecoin payment infrastructure.
And now building Arc, its own stablecoin-native blockchain.
That’s why BANCOR is such important early Circle lore.
The name reportedly disappeared.
The thesis behind it didn’t.

More than a decade later, Circle is building remarkably close to the global internet-money vision that made BANCOR such a fitting name in the first place.

And now the lost name lives onchain.

$BANCOR on Arc. 🐦‍🔥

[Bancor @Bancorarc]

In a 2026 interview Jeremy Allaire @jerallaire was asked how Circle received its name.

He revealed that only two days before the company debuted they still did not have the final name.

He acknowledged another proposed name but refused to reveal it:

“You have to wait to read the book.”

Watch the entire critical moment:

https://t.co/0eUipqiPD1

The only public source identifying that abandoned name as BANCOR remains Ryan Selkis’s original January 3, 2014 report:

https://t.co/bJsAgdbT9k

https://t.co/ixQ9nNvj7Y

$BANCOR

[Bancor @Bancorarc]

The original https://t.co/ZfFr5ORdrG website is fully live.

We are preparing several updates, interview clips and a few improvements.

Circle’s original name was reportedly supposed to be Bancor.

$BANCOR on ARC

[Bancor @Bancorarc]

🚨 $BANCOR WEBSITE UPDATE

https://t.co/PzrmKuT2Jb is currently propagating as we move the domain to new nameservers.
Some users may temporarily see the old page while global DNS caches update.

For the next hour use our official temporary website:

https://t.co/M49UfC27nM

Same Phoenix. Same lost name. Same return to Arc.

Before Circle there was BANCOR🐦‍🔥🐦

[Bancor @Bancorarc]

$BANCOR is live on ARC chain

0xc55A4468A3E1C2dfe58dDdaD0188c71D5dFFd740

https://t.co/rBAd7LcIYs

[Bancor @Bancorarc]

Before Circle was Circle, its original name & brand was reportedly supposed to be BANCOR.

The receipt has been sitting online since Jan 3, 2014.

Ryan Selkis / TwoBitIdiot wrote:

“Circle’s original name and brand was not actually supposed to be Circle, but Bancor.”

They chose Circle.
BANCOR got buried.
12 years later the lost name is back this time on Circle’s own chain.

$BANCOR on Arc. 🐦‍🔥

And the lore goes deeper. Here are the receipts:

① THE ORIGINAL NAME — 2014
Ryan Selkis reports Circle was originally supposed to be called BANCOR:
https://t.co/bJsAgdbT9k

② JEREMY ACKNOWLEDGES THE EARLY ARTICLE — 2023
Jeremy brings Ryan onto Circle’s own show, specifically remembers his Dec 2013 / Jan 2014 article about early Circle and says he still shares it:
https://t.co/I31hVrHRmk

③ THE IDEA WAS THERE FROM THE BEGINNING
Jeremy explains that when Circle was being founded in 2013, they were already thinking about global currencies, SDR-style monetary systems and putting fiat currencies onto public blockchain rails:
https://t.co/iyZ0XpdYfQ

④ JEREMY LITERALLY SAYS BANCOR — 2020
While discussing a synthetic global digital currency built from fiat + potentially Bitcoin, Jeremy asks whether it could “become a Bancor.”
https://t.co/z9DojoFpgU

⑤ “WE’VE LONG FELT…” — 2020
Jeremy discusses Keynes’ Bancor, a future synthetic global digital currency, then connects that direction to CENTRE’s vision of multiple stablecoins and synthetic currencies:
https://t.co/mOrLoubckQ

The name was there.
The idea never really disappeared.
Then Circle built Arc.
Now BANCOR comes home.

$BANCOR