Circle, the company behind the USDC stablecoin, just pulled in $222 million through a presale of its new ARC token. The token is the native asset for Arc, a forthcoming Layer-1 blockchain aimed squarely at institutional finance.
The presale, which closed on May 11, values the Arc project at $3 billion on a fully diluted basis.
The investor list reads like a TradFi all-star roster
Andreessen Horowitz’s a16z crypto division led the round with a $75 million commitment. BlackRock, Apollo, Intercontinental Exchange (the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange), ARK Invest, and Standard Chartered Ventures all participated.
For context, USDC currently has over $30 billion in circulation as of early 2026. Circle isn’t building Arc from a standing start. It’s leveraging one of the most widely held stablecoins in crypto as a foundation for an entirely new blockchain ecosystem.
What Arc actually is, and why it matters
Arc is designed as a specialized Layer-1 blockchain that integrates stablecoins directly into institutional-grade applications. Circle wants to build a blockchain where banks, asset managers, and exchanges can move tokenized assets around using stablecoins as the native medium, without relying on general-purpose chains that weren’t designed with institutional compliance requirements in mind.
The public testnet is already live. Users can currently engage in activities like token swapping and domain minting. On-chain farming activity has picked up as speculators position themselves for whatever incentives Circle might roll out to bootstrap liquidity and engagement.
What this means for investors
BlackRock’s participation is particularly telling. The firm has been methodically expanding its crypto footprint, and backing a stablecoin-native Layer-1 suggests it sees tokenized asset infrastructure as a long-term strategic priority. Apollo manages hundreds of billions in alternative assets, exactly the kind of illiquid holdings that tokenization proponents argue would benefit most from on-chain settlement. ICE operates the exchange infrastructure that underpins much of global financial markets.
For crypto-native investors, the $3 billion valuation sets a high bar for a project still in testnet. The valuation implies significant expectations for Arc to capture meaningful market share in the institutional tokenization space, a sector that’s attracting competition from Avalanche’s Evergreen subnets, JPMorgan’s Onyx, and several other well-funded initiatives.
Regulatory scrutiny is the obvious risk factor. A stablecoin issuer launching its own Layer-1 with a native token will attract attention from regulators who are already closely monitoring Circle’s USDC operations.
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