Circle launched the testnet of its proprietary Layer-1 blockchain dubbed Arc on Tuesday, October 28. Through this initiative, the stablecoin mammoth aims to enable developers and companies bring more economic activities on-chain. Announcing the development, Circle described Arc as the new Economic Operating System (“OS”) for the internet.
Arc, Circle claimed, has been designed to process an array of tasks around asset lending, global payments,foreign exchange, and capital markets. It features dollar-based fees, sub-second transaction finality, and opt-in configurable privacy.
“Arc presents the opportunity for every type of company to build on enterprise-grade network infrastructure—advancing a shared vision that a more open, inclusive, and efficient global economic system can be built natively on the internet,” said Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire commenting on the development.
In an update posted on X, Allaire highlighted that multiple firms from the financial domain have already hopped onto experimenting with the Arc testnet. The announcement blog said over a hundred companies have agreed to be part of Arc trials including Deutsche Bank, Emirates NBD, HSBC, BlackRock, Amazon Web Services, and Standard Chartered among others.
Circle says it envisions Arc growing into a vast network that is operated and governed by a varied set of participants from the sectors of finance, technolog, infrastructure providers, and protocol developers building on the blockchain.
“The goal for Arc is to become the shared, neutral layer of economic infrastructure for the internet — open, cryptographically accountable, and collectively operated,” the announcement noted.
Senior members from BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, BNY, HSBC, Invesco, and Mastercard have collectively called Arc a “meaningful step” to advance the shift of finances on-chain.
Rachel Mayer from Arc’s product team has invited blockchain architects to work with Arc. Stablecoins can be used to process the unspecified gas fee.
Arc is yet to be reviewed and approved by the New York State Department of Financial Services, Circle mentioned.