Circle announced the launch of the Arc mainnet, a Layer-1 blockchain targeting stablecoin payments and financial markets, with a particular focus on delegated transactions, also known as agentic transactions.
The standout feature of the launch is that USDC became the native fee asset on the network, meaning that users and developers will pay transaction fees with this stablecoin within Arc rather than relying on a separate, traditional gas model.
As Circle clarified, Arc supports compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine and provides deterministic final settlement in under a second—features aimed at environments that require high execution speed and stable settlement.
The network also supports more than 20 fiat-pegged stablecoins, including USDC, EURC, JPYC, KRW1, and TRYB. In addition, unique on-chain assets are natively available, including BlackRock’s BUIDL and Circle’s USYC.
On interoperability, Circle said Arc integrates with more than 20 blockchains via the Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol, known as CCTP, and Gateway—giving developers and institutions a wider pathway to move assets and applications between different networks.
The CEO, Jeremy Allaire, described the launch of Arc as “the most important in Circle’s history since USDC itself.” The company also said the network was designed for “programmable money, global markets, and agentic economic activity,” pointing to developer- and institution-focused infrastructure.
This launch comes after the public testnet emerged in October 2025, when Circle said more than 100 companies participated, including BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, Mastercard, and Visa. The company also said in August that more than 100 institutions and ecosystem builders took part in a version of the mainnet prior to the public launch.
Arc ultimately plans to expand participation in running the network, studying a move from Proof of Authority to Proof of Stake in 2027. At the same time, Circle this week completed the minting of 10 billion ARC tokens, but it clarified that this step does not imply a commitment to launch the token to the public.
#DeFi #Blockchain $USDC $EURC $ARC