Circle Launches Arc Mainnet with BlackRock, DTCC, Visa Producing Blocks

Circle has launched its mainnet, Arc, a Layer 1 blockchain where transaction fees are paid in USDC and blocks are produced by a fixed set of regulated financial institutions. The founding validator cohort includes BlackRock, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, Galaxy, ICE, Mastercard, MoneyGram, SBI Group, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo Corporation, Visa, and Worldpay.

More than 100 applications are live on Arc at launch, with Aave, Morpho, and Uniswap anchoring DeFi. Circle minted 10 billion ARC tokens this week without committing to a public launch. The network has no volatile gas token, with fees denominated in USDC and capped at 20,000 Gwei.

Arc's consensus is proof-of-authority over the permissioned set, running Tendermint BFT through Circle's Malachite implementation. The chain is fully EVM-compatible, so existing Solidity contracts and tooling work at launch.