Circle Unveils Institution-Friendly Blockchain Network Arc

Circle has launched its Arc blockchain network for institutions to use as an economic operating system for digital commerce. The launch joins other institution-built blockchains such as Coinbase's Base and Stripe and Paradigm's Tempo at a time when US digital asset regulation is in flux.

The Arc network will allow firms like banks and payments companies to transact on it, with predictable fees paid through the company's dollar-backed stablecoin, USDC. According to Alenka Grealish, principal analyst at Celent, this feature is what makes Arc 'institutional-grade'.

Circle has partnered with several high-profile validators for the network, including BlackRock, DTCC, Global Payments, Mastercard, Visa, Standard Chartered, and ICE. These validators are expected to provide credibility to the network, according to Nic Puckrin, cross-asset analyst and founder of Coin Bureau.

The Arc network has been in development for over a year and is designed to work with agentic AI agents, preparing for potential growth in agentic commerce activity. Circle anticipates that developers will pair agentic AI with other business concepts and ultimately need a rail to process payments, but Grealish notes that the current use case is small.