Circle Launches Arc Testnet with USDC Native Gas

Circle has launched the public testnet for Arc, an open Layer‑1 "Economic Operating System" built to bring real‑world finance onchain by using USDC as native gas and tightly integrating with Circle’s payments stack. Arc offers predictable USD‑denominated fees, sub‑second transaction finality, optional privacy controls and a built‑in stablecoin FX engine intended for enterprise use cases such as tokenized funds, onchain credit, FX settlement and cross‑border payments. More than 100 institutions and technology partners — including BlackRock, Visa, AWS, Goldman Sachs, State Street, Mastercard, Anthropic and major exchanges and fintechs — are participating to deploy and evaluate applications and settlement flows. Circle is emphasizing compliance and interoperability: Elliptic has joined the testnet to provide blockchain analytics from day one and Circle is collaborating with partners such as Fireblocks. Circle says it will gradually decentralize Arc by opening validator roles and governance to the community as participants test capabilities ahead of any potential full deployment.