Circle Stock Falls as Firm Launches Arc Blockchain

The stock of USDC issuer Circle fell by 6% today amid fallout from the Senate vote on the Clarity Act. This decline happened despite the stablecoin firm launching its latest product, the Arc blockchain.

Arc, which has been in testnet for several months, finally saw its mainnet go live. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire described it as the biggest launch in the firm’s history since the launch of USDC.

However, that did not stop CRCL from falling from $86 to $80. The stock is now down almost 14% over the past seven days, even as it remains up 12% over the past year.

CRCL stock decline comes only a day after Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest sold off $14 million worth of Circle stock across two of its exchange-traded funds.

CRCL Stock Falls as Arc Mainnet Goes Live

While the Arc network has been in testnet since October 2025, the public launch marks a new milestone. According to Circle, it is a public layer-1 network designed for onchain finance. It is launching with full integration into the Circle ecosystem, with USDC serving as the gas token.

The network already has full institutional backing with its founding validators, including Mastercard, Visa, BlackRock, ICE, and DTCC.

Other validators include Standard Chartered, MoneyGram, Galaxy, Sumimoto, WorldPay, and SBI Group. The validators are expected to join the network in phases.

According to Allaire, the network is the “embodiment of the premise we have operated on for thirteen years: money should work the way the internet works.”

He noted that Arc is designed for onchain and agentic economy, with the network serving as an open, neutral operating system for the Internet.

While it is designed to be public, Circle has also built in a privacy option for confidential transactions. Other features include sub-second finality, interoperability, and institutional security.

Arc Launches with 10 Billion Native Tokens

Meanwhile, Circle became the first publicly traded company to mint a token, issuing 10 billion ARC tokens for its new network. However, there is no sign yet whether the tokens will be launched.

Circle had previously described the minting as a technical milestone, noting that it is not a commitment to launch them. The firm is exploring a transition of Arc from proof-of-authority to proof-of-stake, with the ARC token playing a role in that transition.

While it might not have a native token, Arc is already home to several major DeFi apps.  Lending platforms Aave and Morpho, as well as DEXs such as fomo and Pump.fun, Uniswap, and Aero have also been deployed on it.

Interestingly, the network is also designed to support EVM, which means Ethereum-compatible apps can easily deploy on Arc.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Investing in stocks and digital assets involves risk, and blockchain launches do not guarantee adoption, revenue growth or share-price performance.