Circle Launches Arc Blockchain for Agentic Economy with Real-Time Payments

Circle is expanding beyond stablecoins with Arc, a Layer-1 blockchain designed to power the agentic economy. CEO Jeremy Allaire calls it the “Economic OS for the internet,” built for autonomous software agents that need real-time, programmable payments.

Arc offers sub-second transaction finality, USDC-denominated gas fees, and “Nanopayments” as low as $0.000001 per transaction-critical for high-frequency machine-to-machine payments.

The public testnet launched October 28, 2025, with over 100 companies participating.

Circle completed a $222 million presale for the ARC token on May 11, 2026, at a $3 billion fully diluted valuation. Investors include a16z Crypto, BlackRock, Apollo, Standard Chartered, and Intercontinental Exchange. The token will be used for governance and a future proof-of-stake mechanism.

By using USDC for gas fees, Arc avoids the volatility issues common with other blockchains. Circle, now public on the NYSE under CRCL, is positioning itself as infrastructure for AI-driven economic activity.