How Circle’s institutional Arc blockchain got taken over by memecoins on day one

Circle's CRCL$83.05·Market Closed Arc blockchain went live Wednesday with BlackRock, Visa, Mastercard and DTCC among 11 founding validators, and CEO Jeremy Allaire calling it the most significant launch in the company's history since USDC itself.

The chain processed 7.83 million transactions in its first 24 hours, but almost none of it was payments. Lifetime USDC transfers stand at about 624,000, according to Arc's Blockscout explorer. Some 400,000 new accounts appeared in a day, and more than 73,000 contracts were deployed. Average fees quadrupled, to three cents.

Memecoins were filling the blocks, leading to some traders writing the chain off.

"Arc is one day old, and every coin is already down like 50-80%," trader wale.moca posted on X. Asked whether it might recover, he replied: "It's cooked." Another user called it a one-day arc.

Memecoins prices on Arc are consistent with the negative sentiment, with TOLLY down 56%, LONG 77%, COOL 75% from launch highs.