Circle launched Arc, a USDC-focused, fully EVM-compatible layer-1 blockchain designed for institutional payments, capital markets, real-time money movement and agentic economic activity. Arc charges transaction fees in USDC, provides sub-second deterministic finality and currently uses proof of authority, with a transition to proof of stake planned for 2027. On its first public mainnet day, September 16, Arc processed 7.76 million transactions, recorded $410.8 million in decentralized-exchange volume and saw 97,025 tokens minted. Launchpad tokens generated $336.26 million, or roughly 82% of volume, led by Arguspad with $202.35 million, Minara.fun with $36.41 million and Tollylabs with $19.65 million. Arc has 11 founding institutional validators, including BlackRock, Mastercard, Visa, DTCC and ICE, and more than 100 applications and institutional integrations had tested or deployed on its private mainnet. Circle also launched its x402 Facilitator on Arc, enabling USDC settlement across Arc, Base and Polygon PoS through EIP-3009; KuCoin added direct USDC deposits and withdrawals, while Circle Mint customers can mint and redeem cirBTC backed by native BTC at a 1:1 ratio.