THE WORDS OF THE CIRCLE

Glossary

Resonance, Fragments, Wefts, Convergence… The Circle has its own vocabulary. Here is what each word means, in a sentence or two. For the full rules, see the CIR documentation; for the story, the Lore.

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The Circle

Circle: One of the 777 hand-drawn, animated pixel-art spheres of the collection, on Ethereum. The supply is minted out: a new circle can only be born through CIR, on a holder's request.
Frame: Each circle is an animation of 37 frames. The number 37 runs through everything: frames, days in a cycle, treasury pieces.
Cycle: A 37-day period. At each cycle change (00:00 UTC), a new Convergence begins. Fragments, Shards, Wefts and Resonance itself carry over.
The Loop: An animation reaches its last frame, and the last frame joins the first. It is never really an end: a return that lets the movement start again.
The Cycle (the world): Not to be confused with the 37-day cycle: The Cycle is the world where it should all come to life. The Circles first, then characters, then the world itself.
Temporary guardian: What a holder is in the Lore: the one who decides a circle's next transformation, inherits its past, and hands its story on.
Transformation: A new background or a new animation made for a circle through a CIR request. The original version always stays in the circle's history.

CIR & Resonance

CIR: Cycle Itératif de Résonance: everything that happens after the mint. Resonance, Fragments, transformations on request and the Convergence vote.
Resonance: The engagement state of a circle. Activating it costs the current floor price, paid entirely to the community treasury; listing the circle for sale breaks it. A circle In Resonance earns Fragments every day, opens CIR requests, the Workshop and the Passages, and counts toward your vote.
CIR Fragments: Points earned by your circles In Resonance (+1 per day and per circle since Cycle 3), by production bonuses and through the Fragment Converter. They cannot be transferred and only whole Fragments can be spent. They accumulate from cycle to cycle, and a circle that leaves Resonance loses its own. You spend them in the Workshop, on the Passages and on ornaments.
Residus: The matter of the Arcade games, in seven colours, the white the rarest. Each game forges them into Shards, the currency shared by all the games.
Rumble: The game on the Virtuous Circle Discord, one of the Arcade games.
Fragment Converter: Also called the Creuset. The Workshop bench where holders turn their Arcade Shards into CIR Fragments. Each Fragment of the cycle costs a little more than the one before.
Shards: The currency of the Arcade games, such as Circle Arena. Earned by playing and by site missions, holders can forge them into CIR Fragments in the Workshop.
Workshop: Four benches in one place: the Fragment Converter, the Background Draw, the Animation Loom and the Ornaments for your public page.
Wefts: Backgrounds from the catalogue, won at the Background Draw of the Workshop. With a circle In Resonance, your first draw of each cycle is free; the next ones cost Fragments (4, then 6, 9…). You can wear a Weft on a circle, keep it, or burn it for Arcade Shards worth its tier.
Animation Loom: Animations drawn by WON3A, in limited editions. A draw costs 20 Fragments and wins an animation right, which never expires and can give birth to a new circle through a paid request.
Fast Track: A paid option that moves a CIR request to the front of the production queue.

Convergence & community

Convergence: The community vote that closes every cycle. Holders In Resonance decide what 70% of the available community funds do, among five options. Votes open in the last seven days of the cycle; your Resonance must have lasted 37 days.
Catalysts: Placed on a Convergence option, a Catalyst opens it and starts the discussion. It never buys extra votes. The team grants Catalysts for community tasks.
Loyalty Echoes: A Convergence option: the treasury buys NFTs from an external collection chosen by the community, then redistributes them by weighted draw. Each whole Fragment held at cycle close is one ticket.
Buyback: A Convergence option: the treasury buys circles on the secondary market for the community reserve. Nothing is burned.
Contributor Bounties: A Convergence option that funds public contributor tasks. Every payment is logged on-chain.
Passages: Raffles offered by partner collections, usually allowlist spots. Anyone can browse them; entering takes a circle In Resonance, linked X and Discord accounts and 3 CIR Fragments.
The Widening Circle: Where other collections apply for a collaboration with the Circle. The more community support a collection gathers, the better its chances of reserved spots.
Missions: Small goals of the site, such as signing in on three days in a week or voting in the Convergence, rewarded in Shards. Each game also has its own daily quests.
Echoes: The feed in your profile: what happens on the site, plus your own forges and claimed missions. Not to be confused with Loyalty Echoes.
Ornaments: Optional visual items for your public page: frames, auras, name styles, titles and banners, mostly paid in CIR Fragments in the Workshop. Your account is enough to unlock them once your wallet is linked: no wallet signature needed. They change how your profile looks, never your circle, its metadata or your vote.