Circle has announced that its Layer 1 blockchain, Arc, is now live on mainnet. The EVM-compatible layer 1 blockchain launches with BlackRock, the Depository Trust and Clearing Corp., ICE, Visa, Mastercard, Moneygram, SBI Group, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo Corporation, Visa, and Worldpay (now Global Payments) named in its founding validator cohort.<\/p>\n
Arc is built for three things: financial markets, real-time money movement and AI agents transacting on their own. Since it is EVM compatible, existing Solidity contracts deploy without rewrite. Circle says that more than 100 applications and over 100 institutional and ecosystem builders are live from day one. This includes banks, asset managers, exchanges, custodians and wallets. Circle stated in its press release<\/a> that Arc\u2019s testnet, which opened in October last year, processed over 700 million transactions before this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n Arc Mainnet is live.<\/p>\n Arc launches as the Economic OS for the internet: an open platform for global markets, real-time value movement, tokenized assets, and agentic economic activity.<\/p>\n Arc is more than a blockchain.<\/p>\n It launches as a full-stack financial platform with assets,\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/SWg0NlUijO<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Arc (@arc) September 16, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire even stated that \u201cArc is the single most significant launch in Circle\u2019s history since USDC itself\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n Two choices differentiate Arc from other Layer 1s. The first aspect is gas. Transaction fees on the network are paid in USDC rather than a volatile native token, which means institutions transacting on the chain can forecast what the fees will cost before it sends them. Allair\u2019s comparison was that forcing a company to hold a chain\u2019s token just to use the network is like making Netflix buy Amazon shares to pay its AWS bill.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n
Fees are Priced in USDC, Settlement Takes Under a Second<\/h2>\n