Circle Launches Arc Mainnet With BlackRock, DTCC and Visa as Validators

Circle Internet Group switched on the public mainnet of Arc on September 16, marking the USDC issuer’s most significant expansion beyond stablecoins as it positions the open Layer 1 blockchain as an economic operating system for payments, tokenized markets and AI agents.

The launch, announced by Circle, goes live with a permissioned validator set drawn from the institutions that run global finance rather than a fully decentralized network, a design choice Circle argues gives banks and asset managers the trust they need to move treasury, trading and payments onchain.

A Validator Set From Global Finance The network’s phased rollout is secured by 11 founding validators: BlackRock, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), Galaxy, ICE, Mastercard, MoneyGram, SBI Group, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo Corporation, Visa and Worldpay (now Global Payments).

Circle said more than 100 applications and more than 100 institutional and ecosystem builders are already live on or exploring Arc.