- Circle launched Arc, a payments-centric Layer 1 now in public testnet with more than 100 institutions involved.
- The network targets cross-border payments, FX settlement and tokenized funds, with USDC-denominated fees and sub-second finality.
- Participants include Visa, BlackRock, HSBC, State Street, Deutsche Bank, Coinbase, Kraken, AWS, Mastercard and more.
- Circle plans a path to decentralized governance, widening validator participation and establishing public frameworks.
Circle has rolled out the public testnet of Arc, a payments‑oriented Layer 1 built to connect traditional finance with onchain infrastructure, with over one hundred banks, asset managers, fintechs and technology firms already experimenting on the network.
Arriving as stablecoins and real‑world asset tokenization accelerate across mainstream finance, Arc is positioned as an enterprise‑grade base layer for money and markets; Circle’s chief executive said participating organizations reach billions of end users and handle activity measured in the hundreds of trillions across regions worldwide, while industry forecasts from major consultancies suggest multi‑trillion‑dollar potential for digital dollars and tokenized assets in the coming years.
What the Arc public testnet brings
Designed as a foundational rail for financial services, Arc emphasizes predictable costs and speed by using USDC as the network’s gas with USD‑based fees, sub‑second settlement and optional privacy controls, all tightly integrated with Circle’s existing stablecoin and payments stack.
The testnet is open to developers and enterprises to pilot use cases spanning cross‑border payments, programmable settlement, FX on-chain, tokenized funds and broader capital‑markets workflows such as issuance, transfers and custody‑aware operations.
Who is participating and what they are testing
Global financial institutions are exploring concrete applications on Arc: Visa is assessing how stablecoin‑backed rails could speed international money movement; BlackRock is evaluating on‑chain FX and stablecoin settlement for added capital‑markets utility; Invesco is testing operational efficiency for tokenized funds; Société Générale is examining programmable settlement and transparency for cross‑border flows; and HSBC is trialing faster, clearer international payments. Additional banking participants include State Street, Deutsche Bank, Standard Chartered, First Abu Dhabi Bank, BTG Pactual, Commerzbank, Emirates NBD, Absa, FirstRand Bank and SBI Holdings, reflecting strong interest across global networks.
Market infrastructure and custodial providers are also active: BNY Mellon, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) and State Street are involved in capital‑markets exploration; institutional custody specialists such as BitGo, Copper, Taurus and Zodia Custody are testing storage and integration flows; and WisdomTree is participating via tokenized fund initiatives aligned with regulated market needs.
From digital asset platforms and fintech to global tech vendors, the ecosystem spans Coinbase, Kraken and Coincheck on the exchange side; DeFi protocols including Aave, Curve and Maple; payment and commerce enablers such as Nuvei and Brex; and infrastructure partners like AWS, Mastercard and Cloudflare, indicating broad alignment across software, networks and settlement layers.
Arc’s FX and stablecoin exchange infrastructure is being evaluated by regional issuers as well, including Forte (AUDF) in Australia, Avenia (BRLA) in Brazil, Juno (MXNB) in Mexico and Coins.ph (PHPC) in the Philippines, with additional activity reported from Japan and Canada through programs such as JPYC and QCAD.
Architecture, performance and developer experience
Arc’s design aims to deliver an “economic operating system” for the internet where USD‑denominated fees remove gas‑price volatility, costs are predictable for enterprise workflows, and finality occurs in sub‑seconds to support high‑throughput payment and settlement scenarios.
Because Arc connects directly to Circle’s full‑stack stablecoin and payments platform, organizations can prototype on familiar rails and conduct end‑to‑end tests with onchain logic using test assets, enabling faster assessments of real‑world processes like treasury moves, disbursements and post‑trade flows.
On the tooling front, Anthropic plans AI‑assisted developer capabilities to streamline building on Arc, reflecting a push toward efficient, guided development of payment, markets and compliance‑aware applications.
Governance and the road ahead
While Circle is orchestrating the early rollout, the objective is to evolve Arc toward a decentralized, community‑governed network, expanding validator participation over time and instituting transparent public frameworks to steward upgrades and protocol‑level decision‑making.
The long‑term vision frames Arc as a shared, neutral layer of cryptographically accountable economic infrastructure for the internet, capable of supporting institutional‑grade assets, settlement and services across jurisdictions and market structures.
With public testnet access opened globally and heavyweight participants from banking, asset management, market infrastructure, fintech, crypto and cloud involved, Arc is being positioned as a practical venue to trial fast, predictable, compliance‑ready settlement for payments, FX and tokenized instruments, ahead of broader production deployment.
