Circle Unveils Arc, a New Layer-1 Aiming to Power the AI-Driven Economy

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire is betting the next era of money movement won't be led by people. In his view, AI agents will increasingly move value autonomously, often in transaction sizes so small traditional card networks would struggle to process them economically. Circle says its answer is Arc, a purpose-built Layer-1 blockchain positioned as an "Economic OS for the internet." The company raised $222 million in a private presale of its native ARC token, implying a $3 billion fully diluted valuation. Participants included BlackRock, a16z crypto, Apollo, Standard Chartered, and ARK Invest. Arc's pitch centers on sub-second settlement and privacy controls, with an architecture tuned for AI-driven activity. The goal is to let autonomous software transact with other autonomous software without the frictions of traditional banking hours. Alongside the token sale, Circle introduced the "Circle Agent Stack," a toolkit intended to let AI agents manage USDC, discover services, and automate transactions across multiple blockchains. Allaire has framed Arc as core infrastructure for an emerging AI-powered economy, enabling digital business models through programmable dollars and nanopayments—transactions so small that Visa or Mastercard fees could exceed the value being transferred. Circle opened a public testnet on October 28, 2025, targeting use cases across payments and capital markets. The network reached full launch on May 11, 2026. Circle said roughly 740 million ARC tokens were sold in the presale. Based on the $222 million raise at a $3 billion fully diluted valuation, the implied token price is about $4.05. Arc builds on Circle's existing USDC stablecoin infrastructure, which already runs across multiple blockchains. Circle says Arc extends that footprint with features aimed at institutional finance and automated, machine-to-machine economic interactions. For investors, the presence of BlackRock and Standard Chartered in a token presale stands out, given the trillions of dollars these firms manage or facilitate. Their involvement signals a view that AI-native financial infrastructure could become a meaningful category. The main risk is adoption: the "agentic economy" may remain more conceptual than practical. Backers of Arc are effectively wagering that machine-to-machine commerce scales quickly enough before comparable capabilities are built on existing blockchains.