Circle activated the public mainnet of its new Layer 1 blockchain, Arc, on Wednesday and minted the full genesis supply of 10 billion ARC tokens in the United States. The company began operations with more than 100 applications deployed and over 100 institutional and ecosystem partners onboard from the start.
Arc’s validator lineup backed by major financial institutions
Arc’s founding validator group features prominent names from established finance, including BlackRock, DTCC, Visa, Mastercard, ICE, Standard Chartered, Galaxy, MoneyGram, SBI Group, Sumitomo Corporation and Worldpay, now part of Global Payments. These firms are participating in a phased rollout and will secure the network alongside Circle.
Several banks such as BNY, HSBC and State Street are either live on Arc or exploring the platform. Decentralized finance projects Aave and Morpho are establishing Arc’s credit markets, while Uniswap supports trading functionalities on the chain.
Gas fees on Arc are payable in USDC, a stablecoin with more than $74 billion in circulation. Circle specified that settlements on the network reach finality in under one second and the validator set remains permissioned. Confidential transaction options equipped with view keys are also in development, aiming for a future network-wide launch.
Mini dictionary: Circle is a US-based financial technology firm known for its role as the issuer of USDC, a major dollar-backed stablecoin. Arc is Circle’s proprietary Layer 1 blockchain designed for high-speed payments and stablecoin integration.
Token minting and network design
Circle described the minting of ARC as making it “the first publicly traded company to mint a network token for a new layer-one blockchain.” ARC is intended to coordinate security, utility and governance across the network. However, network fees are processed exclusively in USDC for now. The company further clarified that minting ARC “is not a commitment to publicly launch ARC.”
Circle announced that it is considering a transition from its current proof of authority network structure to a proof of stake model by 2027. This exploration could further decentralize the Arc blockchain in the future.
Development milestones and technical compatibility
Circle initially disclosed plans for Arc in August 2025, opened a public testnet two months later, and revealed token plans during an industry event in Seoul in April 2026. According to the company, Arc’s testnet has processed more than 700 million transactions in under a year.
Arc offers full compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), allowing Solidity-based smart contracts from other platforms to run on Arc without modification.
“Purpose-built blockchains can help accelerate adoption of digital asset use cases, and Arc appears clearly well positioned to serve stablecoin and payment use cases at scale,” said Robbie Mitchnick, global head of digital assets at BlackRock, in remarks released by Circle.
| Feature | Arc | Ethereum |
|---|---|---|
| Token used for gas | USDC | ETH |
| Consensus mechanism | Permissioned (exploring PoS for 2027) | Proof of Stake (PoS) |
| Initial token supply | 10 billion ARC | No fixed supply |
| EVM compatibility | Yes | Yes |
| Settlement finality | <1 second | Variable |
