$USDC #MemeLaunchpads82%OfArcDayOneVolume
Circle's Arc chain went live for institutions — meme launchpads showed up instead
Circle's new Layer 1 network, Arc, launched its public mainnet on September 16 with a clear institutional pitch: BlackRock, Visa, Mastercard, and ICE as founding validators, tokenized funds from Bitwise and Janus Henderson, and stablecoin settlement rails for Visa and MoneyGram.
Day one told a different story. Arc cleared $410.8 million in DEX volume — but 82% of it ($336.3M) came from meme coin launchpads, not institutional activity. A single launchpad, Arguspad, alone handled $202.35 million and minted over 83,000 new tokens in 24 hours. Strip launchpads out, and Arc's actual institutional/settlement volume was closer to $74.6 million.
For comparison, Robinhood Chain — a similar institutional-pitch chain — did just $14.7M on its opening day. Arc's debut came in roughly 28x larger, but the composition raises a fair question: is this durable liquidity, or a first-day speculative rush that fades once launchpad hype cools?
The next few trading days will show whether institutional flow catches up, or whether Arc settles into a meme-trading pattern despite its institutional design.
$USDC #Arc #Circle #CryptoNews
Circle's Arc chain went live for institutions — meme launchpads showed up instead
Circle's new Layer 1 network, Arc, launched its public mainnet on September 16 with a clear institutional pitch: BlackRock, Visa, Mastercard, and ICE as founding validators, tokenized funds from Bitwise and Janus Henderson, and stablecoin settlement rails for Visa and MoneyGram.
Day one told a different story. Arc cleared $410.8 million in DEX volume — but 82% of it ($336.3M) came from meme coin launchpads, not institutional activity. A single launchpad, Arguspad, alone handled $202.35 million and minted over 83,000 new tokens in 24 hours. Strip launchpads out, and Arc's actual institutional/settlement volume was closer to $74.6 million.
For comparison, Robinhood Chain — a similar institutional-pitch chain — did just $14.7M on its opening day. Arc's debut came in roughly 28x larger, but the composition raises a fair question: is this durable liquidity, or a first-day speculative rush that fades once launchpad hype cools?
The next few trading days will show whether institutional flow catches up, or whether Arc settles into a meme-trading pattern despite its institutional design.
$USDC #Arc #Circle #CryptoNews
