Circle Launches Arc Mainnet With BlackRock, DTCC and Visa as Validators

In brief

• Circle’s Arc mainnet went live Wednesday with more than 100 institutional and ecosystem partners on day one.
• Founding validators include BlackRock, DTCC, ICE, Mastercard, Visa, Standard Chartered and SBI Group.
• Circle minted 10 billion ARC tokens this week, while saying that is not a commitment to launch one publicly.

Circle has switched on Arc, a Layer 1 blockchain built for payments, trading and “agentic economic activity,” announcing the public mainnet on Wednesday.

Chief executive Jeremy Allaire called it "the single most significant launch in Circle's history since USDC itself," in a press release. The USDC stablecoin now has around $74 billion in circulation and is wired into the new chain as its gas token.

BlackRock, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, ICE, Mastercard, MoneyGram, SBI Group, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo, Visa, Worldpay and Galaxy make up Arc’s founding cohort. Circle presents its permissioned validator model as a selling point, pairing it with a "defined governance perimeter" it says lets banks use a public chain for treasury, trading and confidential payments.

ARC’s genesis mint

Circle completed the genesis mint of ARC this week, creating all 10 billion tokens and making it the first publicly traded company to mint a network token for a new Layer 1. The mint "is not a commitment to publicly launch ARC," the company said, describing it instead as a technical step toward a possible move from proof of authority to proof of stake in 2027.