Circle Debuts Arc Mainnet Blockchain Network for Financial Markets
Circle has launched its Arc Mainnet open Layer-1 blockchain network designed for financial markets and real-time money movement. The platform, described as an 'economic operating system for the internet', is built to support agentic economic activity and features deterministic, instant settlement.
The mainnet launch comes with native integration into Circle's full-stack platform, including the USDC stablecoin, and a founding validator cohort consisting of BlackRock, the DTCC, Standard Chartered, and Visa. Over 100 applications are available at launch, along with more than 100 institutional and ecosystem builders spanning global banks, asset managers, payment networks, exchanges, custodians, DeFi protocols, wallets, and AI platforms.
Circle's CEO Jeremy Allaire emphasizes the importance of infrastructure that supports an open, neutral, always-on economic operating system. He notes that the agentic economy and on-chain economy are not separate revolutions but two sides of the same economy, which requires infrastructure that never closes and settles in under a second.