\nCircle Internet Group, Inc. (NYSE: CRCL), one of the world’s leading internet financial platform companies, today announced the public mainnet launch of Arc<\/a>, an open Layer 1 blockchain purpose-built for financial markets, real-time money movement, and agentic economic activity. Arc launches with native integration into Circle\u2019s full-stack platform (including USDC, the world’s largest regulated digital dollar, with more than $74 billion in circulation); a founding validator cohort drawn from the institutions that run global finance; more than 100 applications; and more than 100 institutional and ecosystem builders spanning global banks, asset managers, payment networks, exchanges, custodians, DeFi protocols, wallets, and AI platforms live on day one.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cArc is the single most significant launch in Circle’s history since USDC itself, and it is the embodiment of the premise we have operated on for thirteen years: money should work the way the internet works,\u201d said Jeremy Allaire, Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Circle<\/b>. \u201cUSDC was step one. Arc is the network built for what comes next. The agentic economy and the onchain economy are not two different revolutions; they are the same economy seen from two sides, and both need infrastructure that never closes, settles in under a second, and is trusted by the institutions that anchor the global financial system. Today we are switching on something the world has never had before: an open, neutral, always-on economic operating system for the internet, secured by some of the most important financial institutions on Earth, and built for a world where both people and machines transact.\u201d<\/p>\n
AN ECONOMIC OPERATING SYSTEM, NOT JUST A BLOCKCHAIN<\/b><\/p>\n
\nSix design choices set Arc apart and power onchain finance across payments, FX, trading, lending, markets, and asset issuance:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Gas in dollars.<\/b> Fees are paid in USDC, with no volatile native token required.\n<\/li>\n
- Sub-second finality.<\/b> Deterministic, instant settlement. Final means final.\n<\/li>\n
- Opt-in privacy.<\/b> Confidential transactions and balances with view keys; in development for network-wide release.\n<\/li>\n
- Issuers and interoperability.<\/b> A home for USDC, EURC, and tokenized real-world assets, with Circle StableFX providing 24\/7 cross-currency settlement.\n<\/li>\n
- Agentic economic activity.<\/b> The first blockchain designed from genesis for AI agents as economic actors.\n<\/li>\n
- Institutional security.<\/b> Post-quantum signatures supported today and deterministic consensus built to financial market standards.\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Money without borders. Circle StableFX<\/i><\/b>, <\/i>enables 24\/7 programmable FX trading with near-instant, low-cost settlement. Local stablecoins that are active or onboarding to StableFX include:USDC, EURC, AUDD, AUDF, BRLA, CADD, CHFAU, EURAU, GBPA, JPYC, KRW1, MXNB, QCAD, SEKAU, TRYB, wARS, wBRL, wCLP, wCOP, wMXN, wPEN, <\/b>and ZARU<\/b>. And now Circle Payments Network<\/b> is integrated natively into Arc, moving money across borders for a fraction of a cent and settling in near real time.<\/p>\n
Markets that never close.<\/i><\/b>Aero,<\/b>fomo, <\/b>and Uniswap <\/b>anchor Arc’s day one trading infrastructure. Circle’s USYC (a tokenized money market fund), BUIDL (a tokenized treasury fund tokenized by Securitize), private credit funds, and cirBTC<\/b> give these markets high-quality, liquid, productive assets to trade, lend, and post as collateral.<\/p>\n
Institutional trust meets open innovation.<\/i><\/b> Arc’s opt-in privacy design, currently in development for network-wide release, provides enterprises with the confidentiality their businesses require and the auditability compliance teams look for, together on one network. Combined with a permissioned validator set and the regulatory clarity of the GENIUS Act, this enables banks, asset managers, and enterprises to use a public blockchain for treasury, trading, and confidential payments.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cAs digital assets infrastructure matures, we expect to see certain networks increasingly designed around the needs of specific markets and use cases. 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,\u201d said Robbie Mitchnick, Global Head of Digital Assets at BlackRock.<\/b><\/p>\n
BUILT FOR AGENTS AS ECONOMIC ACTORS<\/b><\/p>\n
\nAgents are already performing economic tasks with Circle’s open, programmable payments products, including executing trades, managing payments, routing liquidity, and executing contracts on behalf of people and businesses. USDC accounts for 98.8% of agent-driven transaction volume<\/a>. Since Circle Agent Stack launched in May 2026, the overwhelming majority of agent-to-agent payments settling over the x402 standard have settled in USDC. Arc is the first blockchain designed from genesis for this new class of participant.<\/p>\n
- \n
- Circle Agent Stack<\/b> gives developers and agents policy-controlled Agent Wallets<\/b>, Nanopayments<\/b> powered by Circle Gateway<\/b>, and an emerging Agent Marketplace<\/b>.\n<\/li>\n
- Arc Portal<\/b> lets people fund agent wallets, set spend limits, and delegate onchain tasks with visibility and control.\n<\/li>\n
- AgentVM<\/b> is being designed so that agents can work with sensitive data in a protected environment while Arc provides an immutable record that lets applications verify where each result came from without exposing the underlying data.\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
SUPPORTED BY THE INSTITUTIONS THAT RUN GLOBAL FINANCE<\/b><\/p>\n
\nAlong with Circle, Arc will have a phased rollout from the founding validator cohort<\/a> that includes BlackRock, The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), Galaxy, ICE, Mastercard, MoneyGram, SBI Group, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo Corporation, Visa, and Worldpay (now Global Payments).<\/b> The institutions that clear the world\u2019s securities, run its payment rails, and manage its capital are not simply connecting to Arc; they will participate in the operation of the network itself, securing a public blockchain built to meet institutional needs.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cICE\u2019s institutional customers are increasingly looking for ways to operate seamlessly across traditional and digital markets. Arc’s native capabilities, including predictable fees and instant finality, address real friction points these customers raised,\u201d said Michael Blaugrund, VP, Strategic Initiatives at ICE<\/b>. \u201cAs a founding validator, ICE is applying our experience securing critical market infrastructure in support of Arc itself, reflecting our clients\u2019 emerging demand for tokenized finance.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\u201cOnchain finance and the agentic economy are areas of intensive focus for SBI Group as well. Our work with Circle already spans a range of initiatives: in March 2025, SBI VC Trade became the first and only company in Japan to distribute USDC,\u201d said Yoshitaka Kitao, Representative Director, Chairman, President & CEO of SBI Holdings.<\/b> \u201cWith Arc, we will not simply be a user of the network: as a founding validator, we will contribute to its operation and governance. SBI Group has also set out SBI APAC Digital Economic Zone initiative, which endeavors to build the next generation onchain financial infrastructure and contribute to the development of the APAC region. Leveraging both USDC and JPYSC \u2013 a trust-type yen-pegged stablecoin issued by SBI Shinsei Trust \u2013 we look forward to deepening our collaboration with Circle in this area.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nAround the validator core, more than 100 institutional and ecosystem builders are already live on or exploring Arc’s private mainnet ahead of today’s public launch, including:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Global banks:<\/b> BNY, BTG Pactual, HSBC, Lead Bank, Societe Generale, Standard Chartered, and State Street have access to a public blockchain designed to help meet bank regulatory demands, including a permissioned validator model and defined governance perimeter.\n<\/li>\n
- Asset managers and real-world asset (RWA) issuers:<\/b> Bitwise, BlackRock, Dinari, Janus Henderson, New York Life Investment Management in partnership with Centrifuge,Maple, Matrixdock, ProShares, and xStocks by Payward are working to bring tokenized financial products onchain.\n<\/li>\n
- Global payments firms: <\/b>Digital Garage, Global Payments, JCB, Mastercard, MoneyGram, Thunes, and Visa will be enabling internet-scale settlement with stablecoins and building always-on and AI-powered global payments.\n<\/li>\n
- Digital asset exchanges:<\/b> Binance, Bitso, Bitvavo, Bybit, Coinbase, Gate, Kraken, KuCoin, MEXC, OKX, OSL, Upbit, and Wenia give users and institutions familiar, seamless access into Arc.\n<\/li>\n
- Custody providers:<\/b> Anchorage, BitGo, Ceffu, Copper, Fireblocks, and Zodia Custody deliver secure, institutional-grade custody for digital assets on Arc.\n<\/li>\n
- Onchain trading and liquidity protocols:<\/b> 1inch, Aero, Bankr, Dinari, Doppler, edgeX, Extended, fomo, Hibachi, LI.FI, o1.exchange, pools.trade, Pump.fun, Robinhood, and Uniswap expand access across spot trading, structured products, perpetuals, and crosschain execution in markets that never close.\n<\/li>\n
- Borrow, lend, and earn:<\/b> Aave and Morpho anchor Arc’s onchain credit markets at launch, with Bitwise, Cumberland, Dialectic, Galaxy, Gauntlet, Keyrock, and Steakhouse Financial supporting the ecosystem in different capacities including through curated vault strategies, risk oversight, and the supply of USDC and EURC for borrowing and lending.\n<\/li>\n
- Digital wallets:<\/b> Binance Wallet, Bitget Wallet, Gate Web3, Kucoin Web3, Ledger, MetaMask, OKX Wallet, Phantom, Rainbow, and Trust Wallet put Arc\u2019s markets within reach of hundreds of millions of existing users from day one.\n<\/li>\n
- Ecosystem infrastructure and tooling:<\/b> Alchemy, BCW, Blockdaemon, Chainlink, Figment, Kaleido, and Quicknode power the developer and infrastructure layer supporting builders on Arc.\n<\/li>\n
- Building the agentic economy and the infrastructure to support it:<\/b> Alethieum, Architect, Arrays, BlockRun, Goldsky, Kite AI, Ornn, Orthogonal, and Virtuals.\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n\u201cAave has worked with Circle for years, growing USDC and EURC liquidity into billions of dollars. We’re doubling down on the Circle ecosystem with a new Aave V4 market on Arc, bringing DeFi\u2019s most trusted credit infrastructure to a network purpose-built to bring real-world finance onchain,\u201d said Stani Kulechov, Founder and CEO of Aave Labs.<\/b><\/p>\n
\n\u201cArc brings together the speed, stablecoin-native infrastructure, and institutional participation needed to expand onchain credit to a much broader market. We\u2019re excited for Morpho to serve as a credit layer on Arc, bringing open, composable, and capital-efficient lending markets to the network from the start,\u201d said Merlin Egalite, Co-Founder of Morpho<\/b>.<\/p>\n
\nArc’s global developer community includes more than 75,000 active Arc House members and 10,000 Architect ambassadors<\/a>, who have built more than 1,200 projects on Arc. Its testnet processed more than 700 million transactions in under a year, and Arc is fully EVM-compatible, so existing Solidity contracts and developer tools work on day one.<\/p>\n
\nWith mainnet, Circle is releasing two new tools for builders to create stablecoin-native applications without starting from scratch:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Arc Studio<\/b> is an onchain coding agent that takes ideas to implementation faster, generating an application complete with smart contracts, application logic, and deployment-ready code for the network.\n<\/li>\n
- Arc App Kits<\/b> is a unified SDK for core onchain fund flows, letting developers add payments, swaps, onramps, and yield in a few lines of code.\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\nTogether with Arc Portal<\/b>, users, builders, and enterprises have three access points into Arc.<\/p>\n
THE ROAD AHEAD<\/b><\/p>\n
\nMainnet is the start of a roadmap centered on proof of stake, privacy, and scalability.<\/p>\n
- \n
- Network Sectors.<\/b> Purpose-built environments for different classes of financial activity: a Privacy Sector<\/b> for opt-in confidential transactions, a Payment Sector<\/b> targeting low cost payments at more than 100,000 transactions per second, and an Agent Sector<\/b> for verifiable agent identity and auditable records.\n<\/li>\n
- Proof of stake and the ARC token.<\/b> Circle completed the genesis mint of ARC<\/a> token this week in the U.S., creating the full initial supply of 10 billion tokens \u2014 making Circle the first publicly traded company to mint a network token for a new layer-one blockchain. ARC is designed to serve as a digital commodity intended to act as the native coordination mechanism for security, utility, and governance on Arc, with network fees remaining payable in USDC. This initial mint is not a commitment to publicly launch ARC, but an important technical milestone in the Arc roadmap as the network explores a future transition from Proof of Authority toward Proof of Stake in 2027.\n<\/li>\n
- Post-quantum resilience.<\/b> Arc supports post-quantum signatures today, with broader post-quantum protections in development.\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\nTo learn more, read the blog here.<\/a><\/p>\n
\nJoin the Arc mainnet launch event streaming live at 2 pm ET today<\/b> at @arc<\/a> on X and visit Arc Portal at https:\/\/portal.arc.io\/<\/a> to get started.<\/p>\n
About Circle Internet Group (Circle)<\/b><\/p>\n
\nCircle (NYSE: CRCL) is one of the world’s leading internet financial platform companies, building the foundation of a more open, global economy through programmable blockchain infrastructure, digital assets, and payment applications. Circle’s platform includes the world’s largest stablecoin network anchored by USDC, Circle Payments Network for global money movement, and Arc, an enterprise-grade blockchain designed to become the Economic OS for the internet. Enterprises, financial institutions, and developers use Circle to power trusted, internet-scale financial innovation. Learn more at circle.com<\/a> and at arc.io<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Forward-Looking Statements<\/b><\/p>\n
\nThis communication contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements. These statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding our future operating results and financial position; our plans with respect to the anticipated future expenses and investments; expectations relating to certain of our key financial and operating metrics; our business strategy and plans; expectations relating to legal and regulatory proceedings; expectations relating to our industry, the regulatory environment, market conditions, trends and growth; expectations relating to customer behaviors and preferences; our market position; potential market opportunities; and our objectives for future operations. The words \u201cbelieve,\u201d \u201cmay,\u201d \u201cwill,\u201d \u201cestimate,\u201d \u201cpotential,\u201d \u201ccontinue,\u201d \u201canticipate,\u201d \u201cintend,\u201d \u201cexpect,\u201d \u201ccould,\u201d \u201cwould,\u201d \u201cproject,\u201d \u201cplan,\u201d \u201ctarget,\u201d and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on management’s expectations, assumptions, and projections based on information available at the time the statements were made. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. For a detailed discussion of the risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those anticipated or expressed in any forward-looking statements, see the section entitled \u201cRisk Factors\u201d in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025 filed with the SEC on March 9, 2026 as well as in other filings we may make with the SEC from time to time. Except as required by law, we assume no obligation to update these forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons if actual results differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements.<\/p>\n
Disclaimers:<\/b><\/p>\n
\nArc is an open L1 blockchain launched by Arc Network Services LLC (\u201cArc LLC\u201d) and operated by a permissioned validator set. Arc LLC provides software services only and does not offer regulated financial or advisory services. Arc has not been reviewed or approved by the New York State Department of Financial Services or any other regulatory authority.<\/p>\n
\nThe Arc network is provided \u201cas is\u201d and \u201cas available.\u201d Use of Arc involves inherent risks associated with blockchain technology, including smart contract vulnerabilities, network disruptions, and the absence of recourse for transaction errors or losses. The ability to transact on Arc depends on the ability to obtain and use USDC to pay gas fees. Neither Arc LLC nor any permissioned validator is responsible for the content, accuracy, legality, or functionality of third-party applications, protocols, or services built on or integrated with Arc. You are solely responsible for features or services you provide to users, including obtaining any necessary licenses or approvals and otherwise complying with applicable laws.<\/p>\n
\nAll Arc features may be modified, delayed, or cancelled at any time without notice. Nothing herein constitutes a commitment, warranty, guarantee or legal, regulatory, tax, or investment advice.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
View source version on businesswire.com: <\/span>https:\/\/www.businesswire.com\/news\/home\/20260916108863\/en\/<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n
- Proof of stake and the ARC token.<\/b> Circle completed the genesis mint of ARC<\/a> token this week in the U.S., creating the full initial supply of 10 billion tokens \u2014 making Circle the first publicly traded company to mint a network token for a new layer-one blockchain. ARC is designed to serve as a digital commodity intended to act as the native coordination mechanism for security, utility, and governance on Arc, with network fees remaining payable in USDC. This initial mint is not a commitment to publicly launch ARC, but an important technical milestone in the Arc roadmap as the network explores a future transition from Proof of Authority toward Proof of Stake in 2027.\n<\/li>\n
- Arc App Kits<\/b> is a unified SDK for core onchain fund flows, letting developers add payments, swaps, onramps, and yield in a few lines of code.\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- Asset managers and real-world asset (RWA) issuers:<\/b> Bitwise, BlackRock, Dinari, Janus Henderson, New York Life Investment Management in partnership with Centrifuge,Maple, Matrixdock, ProShares, and xStocks by Payward are working to bring tokenized financial products onchain.\n<\/li>\n
- Arc Portal<\/b> lets people fund agent wallets, set spend limits, and delegate onchain tasks with visibility and control.\n<\/li>\n
- Sub-second finality.<\/b> Deterministic, instant settlement. Final means final.\n<\/li>\n
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