Circle launched ARC, a public blockchain designed for institutional contracts, governance, and AI agents, with USDC as the settlement currency. The company completed a $222 million presale of ARC tokens that values the project at about $3.0 billion on a fully diluted basis. The presale was led by a16z and included institutional participants such as BlackRock and Apollo. Circle will hold 25% of the token supply to fund validator rewards as part of the network’s tokenomics. The financing was executed via a token presale rather than an equity infusion. The transaction positions Circle to bootstrap ARC with institutional backers and a built-in token allocation for network security and incentives.

Total raised

$1.3B

Funding rounds

9

Latest round

Initial Coin Offering

Latest activity

May 2026