Arc
#2 in OtherCircle · 9× · last seen Sep 19, 2026
Arc is a public, EVM-compatible Layer-1 blockchain by Circle (the company behind USDC), specifically designed for stablecoin-based financial applications, real-time payments, and AI agents as economic actors. Instead of a volatile crypto token, USDC serves as the native gas for transaction fees, keeping costs dollar-denominated and predictable. The network offers deterministic sub-second finality (Malachite consensus mechanism), optional privacy features, and an integrated FX engine, and is secured by a permissioned validator set from financial institutions including BlackRock, Visa, Mastercard, and DTCC. The public mainnet went live on September 16, 2026, following earlier phases as a private testnet (October 2025) and pri
Features
| License | Core node software (arc-node) open source under Apache 2.0 license; network itself operated by Arc Network Services LLC with a permissioned validator set |
| Platform | Open, EVM-compatible Layer-1 blockchain (compatible with Solidity, Foundry, Hardhat, Viem, ethers.js) |
| Price | No fixed product price; transaction fees in USDC, target base fee approx. $0.01 per transaction, average weekly cost approx. $0.045 |
| Release Date | September 16, 2026 (public mainnet); prior private testnet from October 2025 |