Circle launches Arc mainnet with BlackRock and Visa among validators, mints 10 billion ARC tokens

Circle has launched the mainnet of its Arc Layer-1 blockchain network. According to Finextra, Arc is purpose-built for financial markets, real-time money movement, and agentic economic activity.

The network, as reported by Cointelegraph, uses USDC as its native gas asset and offers Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatibility and deterministic sub-second settlement finality. It supports more than 20 fiat stablecoins, including USDC, and has links to over 20 blockchains through Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) and Gateway.

The Block reports that Circle completed the genesis mint of 10 billion ARC tokens this week, although a public launch of the token remains undecided. Circle’s CEO Jeremy Allaire called Arc “the single most significant launch in Circle’s history since USDC itself.”

Brief written by urgent.news from Finextra, Cointelegraph, The Block — 3 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.