Circle is finally taking its stablecoin empire vertical. The company behind USDC announced that Arc, its purpose-built Layer-1 blockchain, will launch its public mainnet on September 16, bringing with it a validator set that reads like a who’s who of traditional finance.
Fireblocks, BlackRock, DTCC, ICE, Mastercard, Visa, Standard Chartered, Galaxy, and MoneyGram are all listed as founding validators.
From testnet to mainnet in under a year
Arc has moved at a pace that would make most Layer-1 projects jealous. Circle first announced the network on August 12, 2025, launched its public testnet on October 28, 2025, and is now hitting mainnet roughly eleven months after the initial reveal.
During the testnet phase, the network processed over 244 million transactions as reported by May 2026. More than 100 ecosystem and institutional builders have been developing on Arc during that window.
