Circle Launches Arc Mainnet With BlackRock, DTCC and Visa Validators
Circle launched the public Arc mainnet on Wednesday, September 16, bringing more than 100 institutional and ecosystem participants onto its new Layer 1 blockchain. BlackRock, DTCC, Visa, Mastercard, Standard Chartered and other financial institutions are among the founding validators.
Arc targets financial markets, stablecoin payments and tokenized assets. The network uses USDC for transaction fees and supports EVM-compatible applications. Circle said Arc delivers deterministic settlement in under one second, while applications including Aave, Morpho and Uniswap-related services are available around launch.
Circle also completed a genesis mint of 10 billion ARC tokens this week. However, the company has not committed to a public token launch. BlackRock plans to deploy its BUIDL tokenized fund on Arc, while DTCC is preparing an integration for tokenized assets beginning in the second half of 2027.
Why it matters
Arc places major financial institutions directly into blockchain infrastructure, potentially expanding institutional use of stablecoins and tokenized assets.
