Circle Launches Arc Mainnet with USDC as Native Gas Token

Circle has launched the mainnet of Arc, a new layer-1 blockchain designed for stablecoin payments and financial-market use cases. The network is built to make stablecoin-based value transfer more predictable for developers and institutions.

Arc uses USDC as its native gas asset and offers Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatibility along with deterministic sub-second settlement finality. This aims to reduce settlement uncertainty, especially for payment flows, automated treasury operations, and on-chain programs that rely on consistent timing and outcomes.

The network supports more than 20 fiat stablecoins, including USDC, EURC, JPYC, KRW1, and TRYB. Circle's goal is to create an execution environment where multi-currency stablecoin payments don't require users to treat each asset as a separate integration problem.