Circle Launches Arc, a Layer 1 Blockchain for Payments and Agentic Economic Activity

Circle has switched on Arc, a Layer 1 blockchain built for payments, trading and “agentic economic activity,” announcing the public mainnet on Wednesday.

Chief executive Jeremy Allaire called it "the single most significant launch in Circle's history since USDC itself," in a press release. The USDC stablecoin now has around $74 billion in circulation and is wired into the new chain as its gas token.

BlackRock, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, ICE, Mastercard, MoneyGram, SBI Group, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo, Visa, Worldpay and Galaxy make up Arc’s founding cohort. Circle presents its permissioned validator model as a selling point, pairing it with a "defined governance perimeter" it says lets banks use a public chain for treasury, trading and confidential payments.

ARC’s genesis mint

Circle completed the genesis mint of ARC this week, creating all 10 billion tokens and making it the first publicly traded company to mint a network token for a new Layer 1. The mint "is not a commitment to publicly launch ARC," the company said, describing it instead as a technical step toward a possible move from proof of authority to proof of stake in 2027.

Circle had already raised $222 million in an Arc token presale at a $3 billion valuation.

BNY, HSBC, Societe Generale and State Street are among the banks with access; Aave and Morpho anchor lending; Uniswap, Aero and fomo provide trading; and Binance, Kraken, Bybit and OKX offer routes in, with Coinbase to follow. BlackRock's BUIDL and Circle's USYC give the markets tokenized collateral.

USDC accounts for 98.8% of agent-driven transaction volume, Circle said, citing Dune, and Arc ships with agent wallets, spending limits and nanopayments.