USDC Issuer Circle Debuts Arc Blockchain with Stablecoin-Based Gas Fees

USDC Issuer Circle Debuts Arc Blockchain with Stablecoin-Based Gas Fees

Circle has officially released the Arc layer-1 blockchain network featuring USDC as its native transaction fee currency, with institutional validation partners that include BlackRock, Mastercard and Visa.

The company behind the USDC stablecoin, Circle, has officially activated Arc's mainnet, a layer-1 (L1) blockchain designed specifically for stablecoin-based payments and financial market applications, with particular emphasis on agentic transactions.

The Arc network utilizes USDC as its native asset for gas payments and provides compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) alongside deterministic finality for settlements in under one second, based on information from an Arc blog post published on Wednesday.

More than 20 different fiat-backed stablecoins are supported on the network, such as USDC, EURC, JPYC, KRW1 and TRYB, and tokenized financial instruments like BlackRock's BUIDL token and Circle's USYC are natively accessible on Arc. The platform also provides cross-chain compatibility with over 20 different blockchain networks via Circle's Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) and Gateway solutions.

Circle's CEO Jeremy Allaire characterized Arc as "the single most significant launch in Circle's history since USDC itself." In a separate statement, Circle published a post on X declaring that Arc was developed for "programmable money, global markets, and agentic economic activity," positioning the network as infrastructure built natively for stablecoins and designed for both developers and institutional participants.

This mainnet activation comes after Arc's public testnet was introduced in October 2025, during which Circle reported that more than 100 companies were taking part, with participants including BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, Mastercard and Visa.

In August, Circle announced that over 100 institutional participants and ecosystem builders had been involved in Arc's private mainnet phase prior to the public mainnet release.

According to Arc's roadmap, the network intends to eventually expand participation in its operational infrastructure and is considering a shift from its current Proof of Authority consensus mechanism to Proof of Stake during 2027. Additionally, Circle finalized the genesis minting of 10 billion ARC tokens this week, though the company clarified that this minting event does not constitute a commitment to publicly launch the token.