On September 16 local time, Circle announced the launch of the public mainnet of Arc, a blockchain designed for payments, financial transactions, and the economic activity of artificial intelligence (AI) agents. The company said more than 100 applications and more than 100 institutions and ecosystem participants were involved on the first day. Arc is designed to let businesses and developers build connected payment, foreign-exchange, and lending services on the same network. Transaction fees are paid in the dollar stablecoin USDC, so users do not need to hold a separate, volatile token for fees, according to Circle. The company said transactions on the network reach finality in less than one second. Arc is also compatible with existing Ethereum development tools and smart contracts.
Circle said Circle StableFX, which supports round-the-clock foreign-exchange trading between stablecoins, is live on Arc. The company identified more than 20 stablecoins for launch or integration. It also said Circle Payments Network, which connects payment providers to Arc's payment layer and StableFX, has been integrated. Lending markets from Aave and Morpho and trading services including Uniswap can be used in the same environment, the company said. Arc Portal lets users create and fund wallets for themselves and AI agents. Users can set spending limits and permissions for agent wallets before assigning them financial tasks. Circle Agent Stack is a set of tools that supports these controlled wallets and USDC nanopayments of less than one cent.
Permissioned validators handle transaction validation. Circle said participation by its initial validator group, which includes BlackRock, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), and Visa alongside Circle, is expected to be phased in. A privacy feature that would let businesses selectively conceal transaction information or balances is still being developed for network-wide availability.
Circle said it technically created an initial supply of 10 billion ARC tokens in the United States this week, and claimed to be the first publicly listed company to create a network token for a new layer-1 blockchain. It stressed that this creation is a technical milestone in considering a transition to proof of stake in 2027, not a commitment to a public launch of ARC. Network fees will continue to be paid in USDC. According to Arc's disclosures, the network is offered by Arc Network Services LLC and operated by permissioned validators. The disclosures also say that the Arc network has not been reviewed or approved by regulators and that there is no recourse for transaction errors or losses.