Circle Launches Arc Mainnet with Institutional Validators Including BlackRock and Visa

Circle (Circle) has officially launched the Arc Layer 1 blockchain mainnet, which supports USDC for gas fees and is EVM-compatible. Over 100 applications, including Aave V4, Morpho, and Uniswap, are live on the network. The founding validator nodes include major institutions such as BlackRock (BlackRock), DTCC, ICE, Mastercard, and Visa (Visa). While Circle has completed the genesis minting of 10 billion ARC tokens, it has not announced a public offering. The network plans to transition from PoA to PoS by 2027.