Circle Launches Arc Mainnet With BlackRock, DTCC and Visa as Founding Validators
Key Takeaways
- •Arc went live on public mainnet with more than 100 institutional and ecosystem partners, in what CEO Jeremy Allaire called Circle's most significant launch since USDC itself.
- •Founding validators include BlackRock, DTCC, ICE, Mastercard, Visa, Standard Chartered and SBI Group, operating under a permissioned model paired with a governance framework Circle says enables bank treasury operations, trading and confidential payments.
- •USDC, which holds around $74 billion in circulation, is wired into Arc as the gas token used to pay transaction fees.
- •Circle minted all 10 billion ARC tokens at genesis, becoming the first publicly traded company to mint a network token for a new Layer 1, and views the mint as a step toward a possible move to proof of stake in 2027.
- •Arc ships with agent wallets, spending limits, nanopayments and optional post-quantum signatures, supporting its positioning around automated software agents transacting under predefined controls.
Circle's Arc, a Layer 1 blockchain built for payments, trading and what the company calls "agentic economic activity," went live on public mainnet Wednesday, with more than 100 institutional and ecosystem partners on board from day one.
Chief executive Jeremy Allaire called it "the single most significant launch in Circle's history since USDC itself," according to a press release. The firm's USDC stablecoin, which holds around $74 billion in circulation, is wired into the new chain as its gas token — the asset used to pay transaction fees on the network.
Arc's founding validators include BlackRock, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), ICE, Mastercard, Visa, Standard Chartered and SBI Group. MoneyGram, Sumitomo, Worldpay and Galaxy round out the founding cohort. Validators are the operators that verify transactions and keep a blockchain running, and this founding roster spans asset management, market infrastructure, card networks, banking and payments. Circle presents its permissioned validator model as a selling point, pairing it with a "defined governance perimeter" that it says lets banks use a public chain for treasury operations, trading and confidential payments.
ARC's genesis mint
Circle completed the genesis mint of ARC this week, creating all 10 billion tokens and becoming the first publicly traded company to mint a network token for a new Layer 1. The company said the mint "is not a commitment to publicly launch ARC," describing it instead as a technical step toward a possible move from proof of authority — the consensus model the permissioned validator set operates under today — to proof of stake in 2027.
Circle had already raised $222 million in an Arc token presale at a $3 billion valuation.
Partner and market access
BNY, HSBC, Societe Generale and State Street are among the banks with access to the network. Aave and Morpho anchor lending, while Uniswap, Aero and fomo provide trading venues. Binance, Kraken, Bybit and OKX offer routes in, with Coinbase to follow. BlackRock's BUIDL and Circle's USYC give markets tokenized collateral. In effect, the chain starts life with entry points spanning traditional banking, crypto exchanges, decentralized lending and trading, and tokenized collateral.
Citing data from Dune, Circle said USDC accounts for 98.8% of agent-driven transaction volume. Arc ships with agent wallets, spending limits and nanopayments, and supports optional post-quantum signatures, with broader protections in development. Those features track the "agentic economic activity" positioning from launch: automated software agents transacting under predefined spending controls.
Circle's testnet, which launched last year with BlackRock and Visa among the participants, processed more than 700 million transactions in under a year, according to the company.
