Circle Partners with BlackRock and Other Wall Street Institutions to Launch Arc Blockchain
nashnova research
Circle launched the Arc Layer 1 mainnet on Wednesday, with BlackRock, DTCC, Visa, and other financial giants serving as founding validators — the stablecoin issuer is moving from minting coins to building its own chain, aiming to route Wall Street's settlement traffic through its own infrastructure.
What exactly is Arc, and how does it differ from Ethereum?
Arc is a Layer 1 public blockchain — a standalone base-layer network, not built on top of Ethereum — designed specifically for financial transactions and real-time payments.
The key difference: transaction fees are denominated in USDC, not a volatile native token. In plain terms = the "gas" you pay on this chain is a dollar-pegged stablecoin, so the fee itself doesn't swing in price.
The network targets sub-second finality and launched with over 100 apps and 100 institutional partners already integrated.
Why are BlackRock, Visa, and other giants willing to run nodes?
Arc's founding validators include BlackRock, DTCC (the world's largest securities clearing house), Visa, Mastercard, Galaxy Digital, and Standard Chartered.
This means → this is not a crypto-native vanity chain. Traditional finance firms are stepping in as validators, signaling they see real business value in on-chain settlement.
BlackRock's head of digital assets, Robbie Mitchnick, said explicitly: a purpose-built blockchain can accelerate stablecoin and payment adoption.
How big is Circle's commercial ambition?
USDC circulation exceeded $74 billion at the time of Arc's launch. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said: "USDC was step one. Arc is the network built for the next phase."
The scope goes beyond payments: Circle's StableFX product handles round-the-clock cross-currency settlement, and Arc natively supports tokenized assets, trading, lending, and even AI agents that can execute economic tasks on behalf of users.
This reflects Circle's expansion logic — upgrading from a stablecoin issuer into a financial infrastructure operator, extending USDC's network effects from payments across the full financial value chain.
What about the 10 billion ARC tokens — is a token launch coming?
Circle completed the initial minting of 10 billion ARC tokens this week, but the company stressed this is a technical milestone, not a commitment to a public offering.
Arc has not yet fully transitioned to proof-of-stake — a consensus mechanism where token holders stake coins to validate the network. That shift is expected around 2027.
In plain terms = the tokens are minted but not for sale yet, and the chain's "decentralization" is still incomplete. Arc currently looks more like a quasi-permissioned chain backed by Wall Street institutions — full openness is still some distance away.
市场有风险，内容仅供研究参考，不构成投资建议。