participated<\/a>.<\/p>\nCircle is the first publicly listed company to conduct a token presale in a compliant structure of this kind. The announcement arrived alongside the company\u2019s first quarter 2026 earnings report. Total revenue and reserve income reached $694 million, up 20% year over year, as USDC in circulation grew 28% to $77 billion.<\/p>\n
What is Arc and why does it matter<\/h2>\n
Arc is a public blockchain built for institutional finance. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire described it as an operating system for economic activity that goes beyond stablecoins and payments.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re becoming a broader internet platform company,\u201d Allaire told CNBC. \u201cWe\u2019re entering the operating system business and we\u2019re doing it by building this multi-stakeholder distributed model with a token, with a distributed network.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Arc uses USDC as its native gas token, with sub-second finality, opt-in privacy, and EVM compatibility. Circle\u2019s Arc testnet has already drawn more than 100 organisations, including State Street, Deutsche Bank, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, and Visa. The mainnet beta is targeted for later in 2026.<\/p>\n
Circle\u2019s strategic shift and market reaction<\/h3>\n
As a 25% stakeholder in Arc\u2019s initial supply of 10 billion tokens, Circle can participate in operating validator infrastructure, generating new fee revenue and earning staking income. The remaining 60% of tokens go to participants who build on, use, and contribute to the network.<\/p>\n
The presale is as much about defense as growth. With stablecoin legislation advancing, some investors fear banks and fintechs could launch competing dollar tokens, removing the need for a third-party issuer like Circle. Arc\u2019s quantum-resistant architecture, confirmed ahead of mainnet, is also positioned as a baseline requirement for institutional adoption.<\/p>\n
Circle shares jumped to $121.55 in pre-market trading after the announcement before easing to $118.65. Earnings per share of 21 cents beat analyst estimates of 17 cents, while adjusted EBITDA rose 24% to $151 million.<\/p>\n
<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Circle has launched the Arc blockchain after raising $222 million in a token presale backed by BlackRock and a16z. Summary Circle raised $222 million in a presale of ARC tokens,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28239"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28240,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28239\/revisions\/28240"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}