Circle Internet Group launched the public mainnet of Arc, its USDC-native Layer-1 blockchain, on Wednesday, with a founding validator cohort that includes BlackRock, DTCC, Visa and Mastercard.
The launch follows a period operating a private mainnet with over 100 institutional and ecosystem builders.
FOUNDING VALIDATORS SPAN FINANCE AND PAYMENTS
Alongside Circle, the founding validator cohort includes BlackRock, DTCC, Galaxy, Global Payments, ICE, Mastercard, MoneyGram, SBI Group, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo Corporation and Visa.
Arc's native gas token is USDC itself, and the network offers sub-second deterministic transaction finality through its Malachite consensus engine.
LAUNCH FOLLOWS EARLIER TOKEN PRESALE
Circle first announced the founding validator cohort and the 16 September mainnet target on 5 August 2026, alongside its second-quarter 2026 earnings. An ARC token presale announced on 11 May 2026 raised $222 million at a $3 billion fully diluted valuation, from investors including a16z crypto, BlackRock and Apollo.
BlackRock plans to deploy its BUIDL fund on Arc, and Circle is working with DTCC to enable tokenisation of DTC-custodied assets on the network from the second half of 2027.
Arc launched with more than 100 applications. Circle also completed a genesis mint of 10 billion ARC tokens, which it described as a technical milestone rather than a commitment to publicly launch the token.
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