The Complete Token
Infrastructure for Arc
Arc is Circle’s Layer-1 — gas in USDC, sub-second finality, BlackRock, Visa and Mastercard among the founding validators. TrustSwap is ready on day one.
Arc is a Layer-1 blockchain built by Circle, the issuer of USDC, and its public mainnet went live on September 16, 2026. Gas is paid in USDC rather than a volatile native token, finality is deterministic and lands in under a second, and the founding validator set reads like a settlement-industry roster — BlackRock, DTCC, Visa, Mastercard, ICE and Standard Chartered among them. For founders that means launch costs quoted in cents; for buyers it means a chain where the money leg and the token leg finally use the same unit.
An EVM-compatible Layer-1 from Circle — Solidity and standard tooling, Malachite consensus, deterministic finality around 780ms, opt-in confidential transfers and the StableFX onchain FX engine. Public testnet has been live since October 28, 2025; public mainnet since September 16, 2026.
Gas is paid in USDC at 18 decimals, and Circle’s mainnet fee reference targets about $0.01 per transaction. You quote a launch budget in dollars because the fee token is dollars. Day-one ecosystem names include Aave, Uniswap, Morpho, Aerodrome, Chainlink, MetaMask, Ledger, Fireblocks and Kraken.
No ARC token exists. A May 2026 whitepaper describes a potential coordination asset, and Circle’s own language is exploratory — no launch, no decision. Anything trading as “ARC” today is not Circle’s. What is actually confirmed →
Last verified: September 16, 2026
Everything a token needs,
priced in dollars.
Create. Lock. Vest. Distribute. Get seen. — all on-chain, all in-house, from the ecosystem that has secured $2.7B+ across 40,000+ projects since 2020.
Team Finance
Token creation, liquidity locks, team and NFT locks, vesting, staking pools, airdrops, multisender, payroll and a tokenomics planner. $2.7B+ secured, 40,000+ projects, live since 2020, 26 chains.
Start creatingTrustSwap Launchpad
For teams raising properly: curated launches with vested allocations and verifiable team locks baked in from day one — built for the kind of counterparties an institutional chain attracts.
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Portfolio tracking, price alerts and market data for millions of users worldwide — where your Arc token gets watched, tracked and discovered after it ships.
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Live cross-chain launch feed, safety flags and 168 research guides. Find and vet new Arc tokens the moment they launch.
Get the appEvery Arc question, answered.
What is Arc? Circle’s stablecoin Layer-1, explained
The chain in plain English →Start here — BuildersHow to add Arc to MetaMask: chain ID, RPC & setup
Testnet params, copy-paste →Start here — FoundersHow to mint tokens on Arc in under 5 minutes
No code, fees in USDC →Start here — Careful peopleARC token: what’s confirmed and what isn’t
No token exists yet →● Every guide is Arc-specific, dated and sourced against docs.arc.io, Circle’s pressroom and Arcscan. Where a step depends on mainnet, the guide says so.
⚡ The chain, live.
Last verified: September 16, 2026
A stablecoin issuer built its own chain and pointed the gas meter at dollars. Here is how Arc got to September 16 — no jargon required.
What Arc is. A Layer-1 blockchain built by Circle, the issuer of USDC. It is EVM-compatible, so Solidity contracts and the standard tooling carry across unchanged. Consensus is Malachite, and finality is deterministic and sub-second — roughly 780 milliseconds — which is the property settlement desks actually care about, because a probabilistic “wait a few blocks” answer is not something a clearing house can book.
Why gas in USDC matters. On Arc the fee token is USDC at 18 decimals, and Circle’s fee reference targets about $0.01 per transaction. Nobody has to hold a volatile asset just to move value, and a launch budget can be quoted in dollars before it is spent. Opt-in privacy through confidential transfers and the StableFX onchain FX engine sit alongside it; EURC is live on Arc and further regional stablecoins are slated to follow.
Who is standing behind it. The founding validator set is BlackRock, DTCC, Galaxy, Global Payments, ICE, Mastercard, MoneyGram, SBI Group, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo Corporation and Visa. BlackRock is deploying BUIDL on Arc; DTCC tokenization begins in H2 2027. On the crypto-native side, Circle has named Aave, Aerodrome, Morpho, Uniswap, Chainlink, MetaMask, Ledger, Fireblocks, Kraken and others for day one.
What is not settled. Mainnet parameters are published and live — chain ID 5042, RPC rpc.mainnet.arc.io, explorer explorer.arc.io. What remains open is the token: no ARC token exists, the May 2026 whitepaper describes a possible coordination asset and Circle’s own framing is exploratory, with no launch and no decision made. Read the careful version →
Circle announces Arc: a Layer-1 purpose-built around USDC as the unit of account and the unit of gas.
Chain ID 5042002 goes live with a public RPC, Arcscan and a Circle faucet. A private mainnet runs alongside it with 100+ institutional and ecosystem builders.
An ARC whitepaper describes a potential coordination asset and a PoA→PoS path — exploratory, no launch. A ~$222M raise at a ~$3B valuation is reported by press.
The founding validator cohort is named — eleven institutions including Visa, Mastercard and BlackRock — and testnet runs about 13.5M transactions in a week.
Public mainnet opened. Team Finance supports minting, liquidity locks, team locks, vesting, staking and distribution. All mainnet parameters →
- gas in USDC /ɡæs ɪn juː ɛs diː siː/ · noun
- Arc charges transaction fees in USDC at 18 decimals rather than in a volatile native coin. Circle’s fee reference targets roughly $0.01 per transaction, which is why a token launch on Arc can be budgeted in cents. How Arc gas fees work →
- deterministic finality /dɪˌtɜːmɪˈnɪstɪk faɪˈnælɪti/ · noun
- A transaction is final the moment consensus commits it — not “probably final after N confirmations”. Arc’s Malachite consensus reaches it in about 780ms, which is what makes institutional settlement bookable.
- “the ARC airdrop” /ðə ɑːk ˈeədrɒp/ · rumour
- Not a thing yet. No ARC token has launched and Circle has made no decision. Any ARC ticker trading today is not Circle’s, and no page on this hub will tell you otherwise. Verify only via arc.io and circle.com. What is confirmed →
Asked constantly.
1Is Arc EVM-compatible?
Yes. Arc is EVM-compatible, so Solidity contracts and the standard Ethereum toolchain work against it — the same wallets, the same interfaces for balances, approvals and transfers, the same mental model for how a contract behaves.
2What token do you pay gas in on Arc?
USDC. Arc charges transaction fees in USDC at 18 decimals at the protocol level, and Circle’s fee reference targets about $0.01 per transaction. There is no separate volatile gas token to acquire first. Arc gas fees explained →
3Is Arc mainnet live?
Yes — Arc public mainnet went live on September 16, 2026. Chain ID 5042 (hex 0x13b2), RPC rpc.mainnet.arc.io, explorer explorer.arc.io, gas paid in USDC. The public testnet, chain ID 5042002, has been live since October 28, 2025. All mainnet parameters →
4Can anyone deploy a contract on Arc?
Yes. Point any EVM tool at mainnet chain ID 5042 with RPC rpc.mainnet.arc.io and deploy — or rehearse first on the public testnet at chain ID 5042002. Deploy on Arc →
5What does it cost to mint a token on Arc?
The network fee is paid in USDC and Circle’s fee reference targets about $0.01 per transaction, so the chain cost of a deployment is cents. Team Finance’s own service fees are shown in the app at the time you use it. Mint on Arc →
6How do you lock liquidity on Arc?
You send the LP tokens from your pool — a Uniswap or Aerodrome position, for example — to a locker contract with an unlock date, then publish the lock. How to lock liquidity on Arc →
7Is there an ARC token or an ARC airdrop?
No ARC token has launched and no airdrop has been announced. A May 2026 whitepaper describes a potential coordination asset — staking, governance, fees, a PoA→PoS transition — but Circle’s language is exploratory and no decision has been made. Any token trading as “ARC” today is not Circle’s. The careful version →
8Which wallets work with Arc?
Any wallet that supports custom EVM networks. MetaMask, Ledger, Fireblocks and Binance Wallet are among the names Circle has listed for day one. Add Arc to MetaMask →
9How do you bridge USDC to Arc?
Through Circle’s CCTP, which burns USDC on the source chain and mints it natively on the destination — so what arrives on Arc is real USDC, not a wrapped representation. Bridging USDC to Arc →
10Is Team Finance audited?
Team Finance has been live since 2020, is non-custodial, and has secured more than $2.7B across 40,000+ projects on 26 chains. Its locker contracts are public, so any lock you create can be checked on a block explorer by anyone. Verify a lock →
Arc mainnet is live. Launch on it today.
Team Finance has secured $2.7B+ across 40,000+ projects since 2020. Mint the token, lock the liquidity, vest the team and run distribution — on a chain where the fees are quoted in dollars.
Everything Team Finance supports on ArcLaunch a token on ArcGet The Crypto AppArc Launchpad