Circle has opened the public mainnet of Arc, its new Layer 1 blockchain built around USDC-denominated transaction fees and institutional financial applications, with Aave V4, Morpho and Uniswap available from launch.
The company said more than 100 applications are live on Arc’s first day, alongside more than 100 institutional and ecosystem builders. The rollout places Circle’s stablecoin infrastructure at the center of a network designed for payments, trading, tokenized funds and onchain settlement, rather than relying on a volatile native asset for gas.
Arc charges fees in USDC and offers sub-second transaction finality, Circle said. The chain is also compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine, allowing developers to deploy Solidity smart contracts and adapt existing Ethereum-based applications without rebuilding them for a separate programming environment.
The mainnet launch follows Arc’s public testnet debut in October 2025. Circle said that test network processed more than 700 million transactions in less than a year, though testnet activity does not necessarily indicate the level of economic use the production chain will attract.
Institutional validators join in phases
Circle has identified 11 institutions as founding validators for Arc, with participation scheduled to expand in phases. The group announced in August includes BlackRock, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, Intercontinental Exchange, Mastercard and Visa.
Validators are the entities that help verify transactions and maintain the blockchain’s operation. Arc currently uses a proof-of-authority model, under which approved organizations validate activity, rather than the more open proof-of-stake systems used by networks such as Ethereum.
Circle said it is evaluating a transition to proof of stake in 2027. Such a move would change how the network is secured and could give ARC token holders a larger role in validator participation and governance, depending on the final design.
Blaugrund, vice president of strategic initiatives at ICE, said institutional customers had raised concerns about transaction fees and the mechanics of onchain settlement. Arc’s use of USDC for gas addresses one practical issue for institutions: firms can settle fees using a dollar-linked asset already widely used in digital-asset payments and trading rather than maintaining a separate balance of a fluctuating blockchain token.
That design also distinguishes ARC from USDC. Circle said ARC is intended to serve as a coordination mechanism for network security, utility and governance, while USDC remains the unit used to pay transaction costs.
Circle mints 10 billion ARC tokens
Circle said it completed a genesis mint of 10 billion ARC tokens in the United States this week as part of Arc’s mainnet launch process. The company described the mint as a technical milestone and said it does not represent a decision to release ARC publicly.
No public distribution timetable was provided. Circle’s statement leaves open major questions surrounding eventual token allocation, governance rights, validator incentives and whether ARC could become transferable before the proposed proof-of-stake transition.
The distinction between an onchain genesis mint and a public token release matters for developers and users assessing Arc’s early economics. The blockchain can begin operating with its network token created while Circle retains control over distribution and the existing proof-of-authority validator structure.
Circle’s approach keeps USDC as Arc’s immediate operating currency. The company said USDC had surpassed $100 trillion in all-time transaction volume and had a supply near $74.4 billion. Those figures relate to USDC’s broader usage across supported blockchain networks and payment channels, rather than activity solely on Arc.
DeFi and tokenized funds available at launch
Aave V4, Morpho and Uniswap give Arc users access to lending, borrowing, liquidity and token swapping applications from the network’s opening phase. Their presence could make it easier for institutions and developers to move between payments and decentralized finance functions without transferring assets to a separate blockchain.
Circle also said its payments network and StableFX foreign-exchange service are integrated into Arc. StableFX is designed to support around-the-clock currency trading and settlement using USDC, EURC, GBPA, JPYC and KRW1.
The company said tokenized funds including BlackRock’s BUIDL and Circle’s USYC will be available for trading, lending and use as collateral. This links the network’s stablecoin settlement layer with tokenized cash-management products, a category increasingly used in onchain lending and collateral arrangements.
Circle and DTCC separately plan to enable the tokenization of DTC-custodied assets on Arc beginning in the second half of 2027. DTC, a DTCC subsidiary, holds securities in custody and provides settlement infrastructure for U.S. markets. Circle and DTCC did not provide a more specific start date or identify which assets would be made available first.
Privacy and AI tools remain under development
Arc launches without its planned opt-in privacy system. Circle said it is working on confidential transactions and balances that would use view keys, allowing authorized parties to examine otherwise private activity.
The proposed model is aimed at banks, asset managers and enterprises that may need to protect trading, treasury or payment information while preserving access for auditors, regulators or designated counterparties. Public blockchains make transaction data broadly visible by default, which can limit their suitability for institutions that cannot expose balances or payment flows.
Circle also released two development tools alongside mainnet. Arc Studio is an AI coding agent intended to generate smart contracts and application code, while Arc App Kits is a software development kit for payments, swaps, onramps and yield-related functions.
The company is developing a separate product called AgentVM, which it said would allow AI agents to work with sensitive data in a protected environment. Its longer-term roadmap includes a dedicated payments environment targeting more than 100,000 transactions per second and expanded post-quantum protections. Circle said Arc already supports post-quantum signatures, a cryptographic feature intended to resist potential future attacks from quantum computers.
Arc’s launch gives Circle a direct role in the infrastructure layer beneath USDC payments and tokenized financial products. The next test will be whether its initial applications, validator group and planned privacy features can turn Circle’s stablecoin reach into sustained activity on a chain built specifically for regulated financial use.
For deeper insight into blockchain payments and DeFi, explore what is DeFi and how does it work today.
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