Arc Chain Flooded with Memecoins, $410M in DEX Volume First Week

Arc Chain's first week on mainnet saw an impressive $410 million in decentralized exchange (DEX) volume, but most of it came from memecoin launchpads rather than stablecoin payments. The network, developed by Circle, launched on September 16, 2026 with institutional backing and a focus on settlement and payments.

The single largest source of the day-one volume was Argus, a memecoin launchpad that went live with the chain. It accounted for $202.35 million in volume and saw 83,751 tokens created in its first 24 hours, roughly half of Arc's total DEX volume on day one.

The visibility problem has already arisen on the network, with thousands of new tokens being created but few getting noticed. Screeners such as DexScreener and GeckoTerminal rank new pairs largely on activity: volume, number of transactions, and unique traders. A token with no trades in its first hour drops off the 'new pairs' view and rarely comes back.