TLDR Tech / Crypto
Circle launches Arc mainnet with BlackRock and Visa among validators
Circle opened Arc's public mainnet Wednesday, an EVM-compatible Layer 1 with sub-second finality where gas is paid in USDC, launching with Aave V4, Morpho, and Uniswap among more than 100 applications live from day one. Founding validators including BlackRock, DTCC, ICE, Mastercard, and Visa will join in phases, and Circle and DTCC plan to tokenize DTC-custodied assets on Arc starting in the second half of 2027. Circle also completed the genesis mint of 10 billion ARC tokens this week as a technical milestone, though a public token launch remains undecided as the network plans a move from proof of authority to proof of stake in 2027. Arc ships with Arc Studio, an AI coding agent for smart contracts, and Arc App Kits, an SDK for payments, swaps, onramps, and yield.
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