Circle targets Sept. 16 launch for Arc mainnet with BlackRock, DTCC and Visa validators

Why Circle is building its own chain

The business case for Arc starts with the limits of Circle’s current model. Reserve income from USDC backing can fluctuate with interest rates, while transaction fees on a proprietary blockchain could generate revenue in different market conditions.

Circle also faces a structural issue on existing public chains: USDC circulates there, but the underlying networks capture the settlement economics. On Ethereum, for example, gas fees go to ETH stakers and other network participants rather than to Circle. Arc changes that setup by making USDC the gas asset for the chain and keeping fees denominated in dollars.

The ARC token sits alongside USDC rather than replacing it. According to the project’s structure, ARC is tied to validator rewards, burns, staking and governance, and Circle holds 25% of the token supply at genesis.

Wall Street names anchor the validator set

The founding validator roster has drawn attention because it is dominated by large financial and payments groups rather than crypto-native funds. Circle has named BlackRock, DTCC, Galaxy, Global Payments, ICE, Mastercard, MoneyGram, SBI Group, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo Corporation and Visa as the initial node operators.

Two planned deployments stand out in particular. DTCC says it plans to begin tokenizing DTC-custodied assets on Arc starting in late 2027, covering areas such as tokenized repo, collateral mobility and corporate actions. BlackRock also plans to deploy its BUIDL fund on the network, which would place tokenized fund assets inside a native USDC settlement environment.

Those plans remain forward-looking, but they are central to Arc’s pitch as an institutional settlement layer rather than a general-purpose retail crypto network.

How Arc is designed to operate

Arc uses Malachite, a consensus engine derived from Tendermint that Circle says can deliver deterministic finality in under 500 milliseconds. Its execution layer runs on Reth, an Ethereum-compatible client, which means existing Ethereum development tools such as Solidity, Foundry and Hardhat can be used on the network.

Fees follow a modified EIP-1559 model based on a weighted moving average of demand and are denominated in dollars. Arc also includes a privacy layer aimed at institutional use cases.

Before the public launch, Circle said Arc’s testnet processed more than half a billion transactions in the second quarter of 2026 across nearly 3 million wallets. The company also said the private mainnet already has more than 100 institutional participants.

Token sale, governance and regulatory backdrop

Circle raised $222 million in an ARC presale at a $3 billion fully diluted valuation, selling 740 million tokens at $0.30 each. That sale represented about 7.4% of an initial 10 billion token supply. Named investors include a16z crypto, BlackRock, Apollo Funds and ARK Invest.

The token allocation is split into roughly 60% for ecosystem development, 25% to Circle for development and governance, and 15% held in reserve. Circle’s revenue model around Arc is broader than token sales alone, combining USDC reserve float with staking income, ARC-related fees and enterprise integrations, according to the project’s design.

Arc is launching into an uncertain policy environment. The CLARITY Act faces a cloture vote on Sept. 15, one day before the planned mainnet launch. The source article says passage would provide a clearer stablecoin framework favorable to Arc, while failure would leave ambiguity in place for longer, though the network is described as designed to operate under either outcome.

What comes next after launch

Arc is set up as a permissioned network with 11 validators selected by Circle, emphasizing institutional trust and governance controls over the censorship resistance associated with more open public blockchains. That design has already prompted debate over whether Arc represents a practical compliance-oriented settlement layer or a more closed financial network.

After launch, the near-term indicators will be whether transaction activity extends beyond validator testing, whether BlackRock follows through on bringing BUIDL to the chain, and whether DTCC stays on course for its late-2027 tokenization plan. Those milestones are likely to shape how the market judges Circle’s attempt to turn USDC from a widely used stablecoin into the base layer of its own settlement network.