Circle CRCL$84.86·Market Closed launched its Arc blockchain on Wednesday, making its biggest push yet beyond issuing the $74 billion stablecoin $USDC
$USDC$1.0004
.
Competition is heating up to among the largest blockchain companies to provide the rails for moving money and financial assets onchain.
“This is, I believe, the most consequential major platform launch in our history, and I think an even more consequential launch than $USDC itself,” said Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire during a press briefing.
The stablecoin market, Circle’s main business, is becoming increasingly competitive, with banks and payment firms entering the race.
A group of 21 financial institutions including Bank of America, Citi and Goldman Sachs is preparing a dollar stablecoin for the first half of 2027, while European bank consortium Qivalis is working toward a euro token. Meanwhile, payments giant Stripe pushes deeper into crypto with Open Standard’s upcoming Open USD stablecoin and Tempo, the payments-focused blockchain it incubated with Paradigm.
Circle aims to compete beyond the stablecoin itself with Arc. Allaire described the chain as a general-purpose “economic operating system” for payments, tokenized financial markets, lending, trading and, eventually, commerce between AI agents.
Wall Street joins Arc
Circle’s Arc kicks off with a wide roster of heavyweight institutions that stretches well beyond crypto-native firms.
