Circle Arc mainnet went live on Wednesday, a blockchain built specifically to settle payments in stablecoins rather than a native speculative token. The company announced the launch as an “economic operating system for the internet,” positioning Arc as infrastructure for businesses moving dollars on-chain rather than a venue for trading.

Transaction fees on Arc are paid in USDC itself, not in a separate volatile coin, removing the step where a business has to hold and price a second asset just to move money.

Circle, the issuer of USDC, the stablecoin designed to hold a fixed one-dollar value by backing each token with cash and short-term Treasurys, built Arc as a layer-1 network, meaning it settles and finalizes transactions on its own rather than renting security from another chain.

Most existing blockchains require gas fees paid in a native token whose price floats, forcing payment companies to manage currency risk on every transaction just to cover network costs.

Arc removes that friction by making the settlement asset and the gas asset the same stablecoin.

Why Payment Rails Keep Reinventing The Wheel

Stablecoins settled more transaction volume than Visa processed globally last year, according to on-chain data trackers, yet nearly all of that volume still moves over general-purpose chains built for trading, not payments. Circle’s bet is that a purpose-built rail cuts the volatility and complexity that keep banks and payment processors on the sidelines.

The company has spent recent months courting institutional partners, including a Series A extension backing for payments startup Velocity alongside Visa and Haun Ventures, disclosed in a separate release the day before Arc’s mainnet debut.

The Institutional Push Behind Circle’s Rail

Circle went public earlier this year and has since pushed into infrastructure plays beyond just issuing USDC, including a bitcoin-collateral product called cirBTC that lets holders use bitcoin as backing without selling it, a move Fathom covered in detail this week.

Also Read: Circle’s CirBTC Turns Bitcoin Into Collateral on Its Own Rails

Arc’s success will hinge on whether banks and merchants actually route real payment volume through it rather than treating it as another experimental chain. Circle has not disclosed early adoption numbers or a timeline for when transaction volume will be reported publicly.

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