Stablecoin issuer Circle has published a whitepaper for Arc, its planned Layer-1 stablecoin blockchain, showing a network built for institutional finance with Circle still holding key controls at the start.
The whitepaper, titled ARC The Native Asset of the Economic OS, describes Arc as a public blockchain for economic contracts, stablecoins, tokenized assets and global markets. The document says the ARC token ARC is meant to act as a "utility-driven token that aligns participants with the long-term success of Arc through staking, governance, fee capture, and platform-wide utility."
Arc launched as a public testnet in October 2025 after a litepaper in August 2025, and the testnet had processed 244.1 million transactions as of May 5, while mainnet launch is expected in summer 2026, per the document.
Earlier, The Coinformer reported that Circle raised $222 million through a presale of Arc's native token, valuing the network at $3 billion on a fully diluted basis.
What ARC is supposed to do
For users, the main idea is that fees on Arc would be priced with stablecoin predictability. Users may pay in USDC, another supported stablecoin, ARC or future supported assets, but protocol fees would be converted into ARC at the protocol level.
As for the ARC token itself, Circle pitches it as a multi utility tool used for staking, governance, fee capture and burn mechanics.
Speaking of supply, ARC will have an initial supply of 10 billion tokens, with the whitepaper saying 60% will go to the ecosystem, including token sales, developer grants and network growth programs
The company argues this amount is needed for protocol development, staking, governance and administration of ecosystem programs. Another 15% will go to a long-term reserve for strategic flexibility, economic stabilization and support during stress.
The whitepaper says early inflation is expected to start at about 2% to 3% a year, though Circle says it should decline over time as the network moves toward "inflation neutrality."
Ishan Sharma, an investment research analyst at crypto VC firm Nomad Capital, suggested on X that "Arc is going to be Canton 2.0," since Circle "will try to replicate Canton's token success by prioritizing different stakeholders at different times."
Eventually, Arc will move from a Proof-of-Authority model to Proof-of-Stake, meaning control would gradually shift from approved validators toward ARC-based staking.
Circle says exact unlock and release schedules will be announced later.