Circle Launches Arc Mainnet With 100+ Ecosystem Partners
Circle’s new Layer 1 network brings USDC-based fees, sub-second finality and institutional infrastructure for payments, tokenized assets and AI-driven transactions.
Circle Internet Group has launched the public mainnet of Arc, its Layer 1 blockchain designed for financial markets, real-time payments and programmable economic activity.
The September 16 launch marks a significant expansion for Circle beyond issuing stablecoins and building payment infrastructure. Arc arrives with more than 100 applications and over 100 institutional and ecosystem participants, while major financial companies including BlackRock, Visa, Mastercard and Intercontinental Exchange are involved in the network’s initial rollout.
Circle said Arc’s public testnet, launched in October 2025, processed more than 700 million transactions in less than a year.
Arc Targets Institutional Onchain Finance
Arc is designed as a stablecoin-native network rather than a conventional Layer 1 dependent on a volatile token for transaction fees. Users pay gas fees in USDC, while the blockchain provides sub-second transaction finality and compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine.
That EVM compatibility allows existing Solidity smart contracts and commonly used Ethereum development tools to operate on Arc.
Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire described the network as the company’s most important launch since USDC.
“USDC was step one. Arc is the network built for what comes next,” Allaire said.
The blockchain is being positioned for financial activities including payments, foreign exchange, trading, lending and asset issuance. Circle also plans opt-in confidential transactions, allowing enterprises to protect transaction information while retaining mechanisms intended to support auditing and compliance.
Arc additionally supports Circle StableFX, an infrastructure layer for 24/7 programmable foreign exchange settlement, alongside Circle Payments Network for cross-border money movement.
BlackRock, Visa And ICE Join Validator Group
Arc is launching with a permissioned validator model involving institutions from both traditional finance and the digital asset sector.
Its founding validator cohort includes BlackRock, DTCC, Galaxy, ICE, Mastercard, MoneyGram, SBI Group, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo Corporation, Visa and Worldpay, alongside Circle.
The participation of companies involved in payments, securities infrastructure and asset management gives Arc an institutional profile uncommon among newly launched Layer 1 networks.
Michael Blaugrund, vice president of strategic initiatives at ICE, said customers are increasingly looking for infrastructure connecting traditional and digital markets.
“Arc’s native capabilities, including predictable fees and instant finality, address real friction points these customers raised,” Blaugrund said.
Banks including BNY, HSBC, Société Générale and State Street are among the wider group working with or exploring the network. Asset managers and tokenized-asset providers include Bitwise, BlackRock, Janus Henderson and ProShares.
Crypto-native infrastructure is also represented. Aave and Morpho are supporting Arc’s lending markets, while Uniswap and other trading protocols are part of its initial liquidity ecosystem. Exchanges and wallets including Coinbase, Kraken, Binance, MetaMask, Ledger and Phantom are also participating.
Circle Builds Arc For AI Economic Activity
Circle is also positioning Arc as infrastructure for autonomous software agents capable of carrying out economic transactions.
According to Circle, USDC represents 98.8% of agent-driven transaction volume across activity tracked through its programmable payment products. The company said most agent-to-agent payments using the x402 standard since the May 2026 launch of Circle Agent Stack have settled in USDC.
Arc is designed to extend that infrastructure through agent wallets, programmable spending controls and micropayments.
Circle is also developing AgentVM, an environment intended to let software agents work with sensitive information while recording verifiable activity on Arc without exposing the underlying private data.
The strategy connects two areas where Circle is increasingly active: stablecoin settlement for traditional financial institutions and machine-driven payments for AI applications.
ARC Token Mint Prepares Future Proof-Of-Stake Shift
Alongside the mainnet launch, Circle disclosed that it completed the genesis mint of the ARC token, creating an initial supply of 10 billion tokens in the United States.
ARC is intended to eventually coordinate network security, utility and governance, although transaction fees will continue to be paid in USDC.
Circle stressed that the mint does not represent a commitment to publicly launch ARC. Instead, it is a technical step toward a possible transition from Arc’s current Proof-of-Authority model to Proof of Stake in 2027.
Future development also includes dedicated network environments for confidential transactions, high-throughput payments and AI agents, along with broader post-quantum security protections.
Arc’s launch moves Circle beyond providing the stablecoins that circulate across other blockchains and into operating financial infrastructure of its own. If institutional participation develops beyond the initial validator and integration stage, Arc could become an important test of whether stablecoin networks can evolve from digital-dollar settlement layers into broader platforms for tokenized finance, payments and machine-driven economic activity.
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