Circle Internet Group (NYSE:CRCL) has launched the public testnet of Arc, its new Layer 1 blockchain designed to power large-scale financial and enterprise applications on the internet. The company describes Arc as an “Economic Operating System for the internet,” offering a complete infrastructure for global institutions and developers.
More than 100 organizations from the banking, technology, and capital markets sectors have joined the testnet, including Apollo, BNY Mellon, BlackRock, State Street, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Mastercard, Visa, and Amazon Web Services.
Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire stated that the testnet launch already demonstrates “remarkable momentum,” with leading companies and protocols building and testing applications. According to him, these institutions collectively move hundreds of trillions in assets and payments, representing billions of users across every continent.
Arc offers predictable dollar rates, sub-second transaction finality, and configurable privacy, and is integrated directly with Circle’s payments stack and USDC (COIN:USDCUSD), which serves as its native gas token.
Circle, the world’s second-largest stablecoin issuer, owns $76 billion in USDC out of a total of $292 billion in dollar-pegged stablecoins. Bernstein predicts the company could dominate the global stablecoin network with Arc’s advancement.
In addition to financial institutions, infrastructure providers such as Alchemy, Chainlink, LayerZero, and QuickNode, and wallets such as MetaMask, Fireblocks, and Ledger, are already integrating into the ecosystem. Anthropic is collaborating with Circle to include the Claude Agent SDK, which uses AI to optimize the Arc development experience.
The blockchain also stands out for its support for the issuance of stablecoins and tokenized assets. Participating issuers include Avenia (BRLA), JPYC Inc. (JPYC), Juno (MXNB), Coins.ph (PHPC), and Stablecorp (QCAD), connecting local fiat currencies to the global digital economy.
Circle plans to evolve Arc into a community governance model, expanding the number of validators and ensuring transparency. Allaire stated that the goal is to build “a more open, inclusive, and efficient financial system, native to the internet and accessible to any company in the world.”