Circle Raises $222M for Arc Blockchain at $3B FDV

A Historic First for Public Companies

Circle Internet Group raised $222 million in a token presale for Arc, its new institutional layer-1 blockchain, at a fully diluted valuation (FDV) of $3 billion — making Circle the first publicly listed company to conduct a token presale. The announcement was made on May 11, 2026, alongside the company's Q1 2026 financial results.

Circle sold 740 million ARC tokens at $0.30 each, drawing participation from roughly one dozen institutional and crypto-native investors. Andreessen Horowitz led the round with a $75 million commitment. BlackRock, Apollo Funds, Intercontinental Exchange, SBI Group, Janus Henderson Investors, Standard Chartered Ventures, General Catalyst, Marshall Wace, Ark Invest, IDG Capital, Haun Ventures, and Bullish completed the investor syndicate.

What Arc Is Built to Do

Arc is a public blockchain built for institutional finance, using USDC as its native gas token, with sub-second finality, opt-in privacy, and EVM compatibility. The chain also features a modular privacy system leveraging zero-knowledge proofs, multi-party computation, and Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs), and will be quantum-resistant at mainnet launch, with a post-quantum signature scheme for optional quantum-resistant wallets.

The Arc public testnet launched in October 2025 with more than 100 institutional participants, including BlackRock, Visa, Goldman Sachs, Anthropic, and AWS. By February 2026, the testnet had processed more than 166 million transactions at half-second finality.

Token distribution is structured as follows:

• 60% allocated to network participants who build on and use Arc
• 25% retained by Circle to operate validator infrastructure and earn staking income
• 15% held in a long-term reserve

If Arc gains traction, it could allow Circle to own more of the infrastructure USDC currently depends on — reducing structural reliance on networks such as Ethereum and Solana for settlement, and on distribution partners such as Coinbase.

Q1 2026: Strong Revenue, Rising Costs

The Arc raise coincided with Circle's Q1 2026 earnings, which showed robust top-line growth alongside rising costs:

• Total revenue and reserve income reached $694 million, up 20% year-over-year
• USDC in circulation grew 28% to $77 billion; on-chain transaction volume hit $21.5 trillion, a 263% increase year-over-year
• Adjusted EBITDA rose 24% to $151 million, while net income fell 15% to $55 million as operating expenses surged 76%, driven by post-IPO stock-based compensation
• Circle's Payments Network generated $8.3 billion in annualized transaction volume as of March 31, 2026

Beyond Stablecoins: Platform Ambitions and AI Integration

CEO Jeremy Allaire framed the Arc launch as part of a broader strategic pivot. Allaire told CNBC the company is evolving beyond its stablecoin roots, comparing blockchain infrastructure to mobile operating systems or cloud platforms, and describing Arc as an operating system built with many stakeholders — including major companies that run infrastructure and help govern the network.

Alongside Arc, Circle launched the Circle Agent Stack, a suite of tools for autonomous AI agents including Circle CLI, Agent Wallets, an Agent Marketplace, and Nanopayments powered by Circle Gateway, which enables gas-free USDC transfers as small as $0.000001.

Published by Coinplurk.com