- Circle launched Arc, a new blockchain network and native token designed specifically for institutional finance.
- Arc, which aims to provide banks, corporations, and treasury teams with faster settlement, raised $222 million in a presale led by Andreessen Horowitz.
- Alongside Arc, Circle introduced its new Agent Stack tools.
Stablecoin issuer and infrastructure company Circle launched a presale of a new token this week that raised $222 million. The new token, Arc, is the native token of Circle’s newest blockchain and the 10 billion tokens released give Arc a network valuation of $3 billion.
Andreessen Horowitz was the lead investor in the round, contributing $75 million. Other investors include BlackRock, Apollo Funds, Intercontinental Exchange, SBI Group, Janus Henderson Investors, Standard Chartered Ventures, General Catalyst, Marshall Wace, ARK Invest, IDG Capital, Haun Ventures and CoinDesk owner Bullish.
Circle holds 25% of the initial Arc tokens released, while 60% of the tokens will be distributed to users to build on, use, and contribute to the Arc network; 15% of the tokens will be held in long-term reserves.
The new expansion will help Circle diversify beyond its existing USDC stablecoin, which the company launched in 2018. As Ali Yahya and Noah Levine explained in a blog post on a16z crypto, “While USDC has become the trusted digital dollar for banks, corporations, and financial institutions seeking the speed of crypto without its volatility, there remains a problem. The internet infrastructure which USDC runs on today wasn’t built with big institutions in mind. It was built for individuals and crypto enthusiasts.”
Arc is essentially Circle’s attempt to build a blockchain network designed specifically for large financial institutions and global payments. Instead of being built for crypto traders or retail users, it is designed for companies that need to move money quickly, securely, and within regulatory requirements.
Arc can help treasury teams manage and move money in dollars using blockchain infrastructure, while still maintaining many of the controls and oversight traditional finance requires. With Arc, transactions settle almost instantly, privacy settings can be adjusted, and the network is run by approved institutional operators instead of anonymous participants.
“[Blockchain] infrastructure is becoming as important as mobile operating systems or cloud platforms,” Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said in an interview with CNBC. “We want to build an operating system that has many, many stakeholders in it … major companies who are running the infrastructure with us and who ultimately help to govern it.”
Arc will benefit from Circle’s expertise in operating USDC, which has grown to become one of the largest stablecoins with a market capitalization of over $77 billion. This network effect gives Circle a stronger starting position than other new blockchain projects that launch without established customers, products, or liquidity.
Along with the debut of Arc, Circle is launching the Circle Agent Stack, the company’s new chain-and protocol-agnostic open infrastructure designed for the agentic economy. At launch, Agent Stack includes three products that enable agents as autonomous actors: Agent Wallets to allow for controlled agent access to USDC and ERC-20 tokens, Agent Marketplace for discovering agentic services, and Circle Command Line Interface for executing agent financial actions through natural language.
Combined, the new token and agentic tools show that Circle is positioning itself for an agentic commerce future in which banks will be powered by autonomous software agents operating on blockchain infrastructure. Instead of just focusing on stablecoin issuance, Circle is building the underlying rails, governance structure, and tooling needed for banks and AI agents to move money, execute transactions, and interact with financial systems in real time.
Photo by Laura Lumimaa
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