Circle launches Arc blockchain with over 100 institutional partners

Circle Internet Group (NYSE: CRCL) launched the public mainnet of Arc, a Layer 1 blockchain network, with more than 100 institutional and ecosystem participants live on the first day, according to a company statement.

Arc launches with native integration of USDC, Circle's dollar-denominated stablecoin, which the company reports has more than $74 billion in circulation. The network charges transaction fees in USDC rather than a volatile native token and claims sub-second transaction finality.

A founding validator cohort includes BlackRock, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), Galaxy, ICE, Mastercard, MoneyGram, SBI Group, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo Corporation, Visa, and Worldpay (now Global Payments). These institutions will participate in operating and securing the network.

Day-one participants span global banks including BNY, HSBC, Societe Generale, and State Street; asset managers such as BlackRock and Janus Henderson; exchanges including Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, and OKX; and lending protocols Aave and Morpho.

Circle also disclosed that it completed a genesis mint of 10 billion ARC tokens this week. The company describes the mint as a technical milestone and stated it is not a commitment to a public token launch. Arc is exploring a transition from proof-of-authority to proof-of-stake consensus in 2027.

"Arc is the single most significant launch in Circle's history since USDC itself," said Jeremy Allaire, Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Circle.

Robbie Mitchnick, Global Head of Digital Assets at BlackRock, said Arc "appears clearly well positioned to serve stablecoin and payment use cases at scale."

Circle reports Arc's testnet processed more than 700 million transactions in under a year. The network is EVM-compatible, meaning existing Ethereum-based smart contracts and developer tools are compatible on day one. Arc's developer community includes more than 75,000 active members who have built more than 1,200 projects on the network.

Circle also announced Arc Studio, an onchain coding agent for application development, and Arc App Kits, a software development kit for building stablecoin-native applications.

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