Thomas Daniels
Circle, the publicly listed issuer of the USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin, announced plans to debut its Arc layer-1 (L1) blockchain later this year. The network will be fully compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and designed as an “enterprise-grade foundation” for stablecoin payments, foreign exchange, and capital markets infrastructure.
Arc is set to launch first in public testnet, with USDC serving as the native gas token, allowing transaction fees to be paid directly in stablecoins. The blockchain will feature an integrated stablecoin FX engine, sub-second settlement finality, and optional privacy controls. It will also be fully interoperable with Circle’s existing platform and the 24 other blockchains it supports.
Circle’s announcement accompanied its Q2 2025 financial results, revealing a 53% year-over-year increase in total revenue and reserve income, reaching $658 million. The surge comes even as the company reported a net loss of $482 million, primarily due to IPO-related non-cash charges totaling $591 million. These included $424 million in stock-based compensation and $167 million from the revaluation of convertible debt tied to the rise in Circle’s (CRCL) share price.
Circle debuted on the New York Stock Exchange on June 5 at $69 per share, raising $1.05 billion in its IPO. The stock reached an all-time high of $292.8 on June 23 before pulling back to $161.2 on Monday — down more than 21% over the past month.
The Arc launch underscores an accelerating blockchain race among fintech and crypto leaders. Stripe is reportedly developing its own blockchain, Tempo, with Paradigm. In parallel, Robinhood unveiled a tokenization-focused layer-2 (L2) blockchain, and Shopify rolled out USDC payments on Coinbase’s Base network.
At the time of writing, USDC’s market capitalization stands at $65.6 billion, with $42.6 billion circulating on Ethereum, making it the largest network for the stablecoin.
