Circle Unveils Arc Mainnet Amid Regulatory Uncertainty

Circle has launched its Arc mainnet, an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible Layer 1 blockchain designed for financial markets, stablecoin payments, and AI-driven economic activities.

The decentralized ecosystem accepts Circle's USDC stablecoin to ensure settlement certainty. The founding validators include major financial institutions like BlackRock, Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), Galaxy, Global Payments, ICE, MasterCard, MoneyGram, SBI, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo Corporation, and Visa.

The launch comes as the CLARITY Act stalls in Congress, which aimed to divide regulatory oversight between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).