Circle launches Arc blockchain

Circle, known for the 74 billion dollar USDC stablecoin, launched Arc on September 16th. CEO Jeremy Allaire calls it the company's most consequential platform launch ever.

Arc meets financial system standards

Arc is built with dollar-denominated fees, settlement in under a second, compliance-built confidentiality, and operators that regulators can trust. It's designed to meet the same standards as traditional financial infrastructure.

“fees paid in dollars, settlement that is final in under a second, confidentiality with compliance built in”

Arc as economic operating system

Allaire compares Arc to Android for the global economy. It will facilitate payments, lending, trading, and eventually commerce between AI agents. Machines won't tolerate money that sleeps on weekends.

“Humans tolerated money that sleeps on weekends; machines will not”

Major institutions backing Arc

Arc has over 100 institutional and ecosystem builders including global banks, asset managers, payment networks, and AI platforms. Founding validators include BlackRock, Standard Chartered, Mastercard, Visa, and Intercontinental Exchange.

Allaire's entrepreneurial background

Allaire co-founded Circle 13 years ago. Before that, he founded Brightcove, a cloud-based video platform, and Allaire Corporation with his brother, which Macromedia acquired in the early 2000s.

Blockchain networks aren't regulated

Blockchain networks are general-purpose software protocols running on the internet, like the internet itself. They're not regulated activities. What people do on top of them becomes regulated.

Regulators want trustworthy infrastructure

Major regulators worry that decentralized networks lack trustworthiness and could mix bad actors with good ones. Arc addresses this by ensuring transactions have final settlement, meeting the same standards as traditional financial system infrastructure.

Trading desks will be AI-driven

The future of trading will be increasingly driven by AI agents operating on behalf of treasurers, households, financial institutions, and trading firms. This shift is happening exponentially fast.

Three pillars of economic transformation

Allaire sees three converging forces: general-purpose economic infrastructure for machines, tokenization of financial contracts, and agentic infrastructure. Together they create the agentic economy.

Programmable money is powerful

Once financial contracts are digitized through tokenization, they become programmable. Just like USDC is programmable money, all financial instruments will be programmable on these networks.

Stablecoins have massive growth ahead

There are 360 billion dollars of stablecoin money in circulation, but only 120 trillion dollars of electronic money exists globally. Stablecoins will eat into that electronic money base over time.

Firms will become pure software

Allaire believes corporations will transform into software entities. Money, contracts, governance, and coordination will run on software machines, while cognitive work becomes agentic work on new operating systems.

Circle's 10 to 15 year vision

Circle spent a decade building programmable money with USDC. Now it's building comprehensive platforms for the agentic economy, a complete upgrade to the economic system over the next 10 to 15 years.

Quantum computing is coming

Like Y2K, quantum computing is inevitable. Circle must protect existing USDC infrastructure across 35 blockchain networks and build new infrastructure with post-quantum cryptography from day one.

“There's the countdown to quantum, sort of like Y2K”

Arc launches with quantum protection

Arc will be the first public blockchain network with post-quantum features from launch day. Circle has a roadmap to make every layer of its infrastructure post-quantum prepared.

Deep conviction drives founders

Successful founders need deep conviction about the change they want to bring. The world will tell you why you're wrong for years. Without core belief, it's nearly impossible to persevere through endless failures.

Leadership requires transparency

Allaire believes in radical openness about strategy and financial circumstances. Culture and values are central to building a healthy company organism that produces results.

Hire slow, fire fast

Different phases of scaling require different people. Founders must evolve their teams from startup to commercialization to public company. Hiring slowly and firing quickly keeps organizations healthy.

“hire slow, fire fast”

AI gives young workers superpowers

Young people entering the workforce should master AI agent systems. They can become experts in hundreds of domains and build things previously impossible. This is one of history's greatest periods for individual agency.

AI will transform every job

Allaire tells Circle employees that every job will be transformed by agentic AI. Learning these tools is the greatest career opportunity they'll ever have, whether they stay at Circle or go elsewhere.