Circle Taps Visa, Mastercard, BlackRock as Arc Validators

Eleven institutions will run validators alongside Circle when the Arc public mainnet opens on Sept. 16. The founding cohort includes BlackRock, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, Galaxy, Global Payments, ICE, Mastercard, MoneyGram, SBI Group, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo Corporation and Visa. Circle’s own validators will also participate in securing the network.

Arc is a layer‑1 blockchain built by Circle to support stablecoin-based applications and institutional use of USDC. The network has operated in a private mainnet phase with more than 100 builders. Circle reports its testnet has processed more than 500 million transactions across nearly 3 million wallets. Gas fees on Arc will be paid in USDC. Several decentralized finance protocols, including Aave, Morpho and Uniswap, are listed as day‑one participants. Wallet and custody access at launch will be available through Binance Wallet, Kraken, Ledger and MetaMask.

BlackRock plans to deploy BUIDL, its tokenized money market fund, on Arc. DTCC intends to enable tokenization of assets it custodies, with that activity expected in the second half of 2027. Circle said the validator cohort is drawn largely from traditional finance and crypto market infrastructure.

Circle released the validator roster alongside its second‑quarter financial results. Total revenue and reserve income for Q2 were $701 million, with reserve income of $668 million and a reserve return rate of 3.5%, down 66 basis points year over year. Net income was $48 million, compared with a net loss of $482 million in the same quarter a year earlier. Adjusted EBITDA reached $143 million, up 8% from the prior year quarter.

USDC in circulation closed the quarter at $73.3 billion, an increase of 19% year over year. On‑chain transaction volume rose to $14.8 trillion, up 151%. Circle reported its Circle Payments Network reached $14.7 billion in annualized transaction volume during the quarter, with 175 financial institutions enrolled; that figure grew to $23 billion by July 31. The company renewed its distribution agreement with Coinbase on existing terms and recorded $410 million of distribution and transaction costs related to that arrangement in the quarter. Circle increased its full‑year guidance for other revenue to $310 million–$330 million from a prior range of $150 million–$170 million, citing recognized revenue from the Arc token presale.

Circle also disclosed regulatory progress. The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted final approval for Circle National Trust, a federal trust bank charter that authorizes regulated digital asset custody and could allow Circle to manage USDC reserves directly. On the company’s earnings call, Jeremy Allaire called the national trust bank a way to scale Circle’s infrastructure for payments and capital markets globally. He also called the validator lineup “a cohort of network validators no other network can match.”

Arc’s public launch on Sept. 16 will place a permissioned validator set into production with participation from legacy financial firms and market infrastructure providers. The network is positioned to use USDC as its native gas currency and to support institutional tokenization and payments applications.