Circle’s Arc Blockchain Puts Wall Street Inside a Public Network

Circle Internet Financial officially launched Arc, its new Layer 1 blockchain, on Wednesday. BlackRock, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) are among the traditional financial powerhouses serving as founding validators. The founding cohort also includes Mastercard, Visa, MoneyGram, SBI Group, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo, Worldpay, and digital asset firm Galaxy.

Circle Chief Executive Jeremy Allaire called the rollout the company’s “single most significant launch” since it debuted USD Coin (USDC) in 2018. Arc’s mainnet is designed as a controlled, high-speed digital highway connecting conventional corporate treasuries with public ledger technology and artificial intelligence-driven commerce.

The DTCC processes trillions of dollars in securities transactions daily, while ICE is the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange. Circle is bringing those market infrastructure giants into Arc as it seeks to bypass regulatory and security hurdles that have historically limited conservative financial institutions’ use of public blockchain networks.

Arc uses a “permissioned validator model” alongside a “defined governance perimeter.” Global banks can use the public chain infrastructure for treasury functions, asset trading, and confidential payments while maintaining compliance with anti-money laundering and privacy regulations. BNY, HSBC, Societe Generale, and State Street have already been granted access to the network.

USDC, the world’s second-largest stablecoin, underpins Arc and will function as its native gas token. Approximately $74 billion of USDC is currently in circulation. Circle originally co-founded the stablecoin with Coinbase through the Centre Consortium before taking full control in 2023, and the company has been preparing for a public stock market debut after filing confidentially for a U.S. initial public offering (IPO) in January 2024.

This week, Circle also completed a genesis mint of 10 billion ARC tokens. The transaction makes Circle the first company of its public-market trajectory to mint a native network token for a new Layer 1 blockchain. Circle said the creation of the tokens is not a commitment to launch ARC to the general public.

The genesis mint is a technical milestone ahead of a planned 2027 transition. Arc is scheduled to move from its initial Proof of Authority (PoA) consensus model, in which trusted, pre-approved institutional validators run the network, to a decentralized Proof of Stake (PoS) system. Before the mainnet debut, Circle raised $222 million in an Arc token presale that valued the network at $3 billion.

Arc is also being positioned for the market known as “agentic economic activity”: autonomous commercial transactions carried out directly by artificial intelligence programs and software agents. Blockchain data compiled by Dune shows that USDC currently represents 98.8% of all agent-driven transaction volume on public networks.

Native tools for machine-to-machine commerce include specialized “agent wallets,” programmable spending limits, and frictionless “nanopayment” capabilities. These features allow software agents to settle sub-cent transactions instantly for data and API usage.

The network’s broader ecosystem includes both decentralized and centralized finance. Aave and Morpho will anchor Arc’s credit markets, while Uniswap, Aero, and fomo will facilitate trading. Binance, Kraken, Bybit, and OKX are providing on-ramps to the network, and Coinbase is expected to add support in the near future.

For institutional collateral, Arc is integrated with tokenized real-world assets, including BlackRock’s USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) and Circle’s USYC. BUIDL has grown into one of the largest tokenized funds since its launch in early 2024.

Wednesday’s public launch came after an extensive testing phase. Circle’s Arc testnet launched last year with participation from partners including BlackRock and Visa and processed more than 700 million transactions in less than 12 months. Arc also launched with support for optional post-quantum cryptographic signatures to guard against future computing threats, while further defensive upgrades are in development.