Circle Internet Group Launches Arc, Its Open Layer 1 Blockchain For Financial Markets And Real-Time Currency Transactions

Arc launches with native integration into Circle’s full-stack platform (including USDC, the world's largest regulated digital dollar, with more than $74 billion in circulation); a founding validator cohort drawn from the institutions that run global finance; more than 100 applications; and more than 100 institutional and ecosystem builders spanning global banks, asset managers, payment networks, exchanges, custodians, DeFi protocols, wallets, and AI platforms live on day one.AN ECONOMIC OPERATING SYSTEM, NOT JUST A BLOCKCHAINSix design choices set Arc apart and power onchain finance across payments, FX, trading, lending, markets, and asset issuance:Gas in dollars. Fees are paid in USDC, with no volatile native token required.Sub-second finality. Deterministic, instant settlement. Final means final.Opt-in privacy. Confidential transactions and balances with view keys; in development for network-wide release.Issuers and interoperability. A home for USDC, EURC, and tokenized real-world assets, with Circle StableFX providing 24/7 cross-currency settlement.Agentic economic activity. The first blockchain designed from genesis for AI agents as economic actors.Institutional security. Post-quantum signatures supported today and deterministic consensus built to financial market standards.Money without borders. Circle StableFX, enables 24/7 programmable FX trading with near-instant, low-cost settlement. Local stablecoins that are active or onboarding to StableFX include:USDC, EURC, AUDD, AUDF, BRLA, CADD, CHFAU, EURAU, GBPA, JPYC, KRW1, MXNB, QCAD, SEKAU, TRYB, wARS, wBRL, wCLP, wCOP, wMXN, wPEN, and ZARU. And now Circle Payments Network is integrated natively into Arc, moving money across borders for a fraction of a cent and settling in near real time.Markets that never close. Aero, fomo, and Uniswap anchor Arc's day one trading infrastructure. Circle's USYC (a tokenized money market fund), BUIDL (a tokenized treasury fund tokenized by Securitize), private credit funds, and cirBTC give these markets high-quality, liquid, productive assets to trade, lend, and post as collateral.Institutional trust meets open innovation. Arc's opt-in privacy design, currently in development for network-wide release, provides enterprises with the confidentiality their businesses require and the auditability compliance teams look for, together on one network. Combined with a permissioned validator set and the regulatory clarity of the GENIUS Act, this enables banks, asset managers, and enterprises to use a public blockchain for treasury, trading, and confidential payments.