On May 11th, according to CNBC , Circle , the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, made significant attention by successfully raising $222 million in a presale round for its Arc Token – the native asset of the new blockchain the company is building.
The Capital round attracted participation from many of the world's leading financial institutions. Leading the way was Andreessen Horowitz with a $75 million investment. Other major players included BlackRock , Apollo Funds , Intercontinental Exchange , SBI Group , Janus Henderson Investors , Standard Chartered Ventures , General Catalyst , Marshall Wace , ARK Invest , IDG Capital , Haun Ventures , and Bullish – the company that owns the cryptocurrency news site CoinDesk . Following the presale, the Arc network was valued at a fully diluted $3 billion, a figure that demonstrates the strong confidence of the financial community in Circle's new strategy.
In the interview, CEO Jeremy Allaire emphasized that blockchain is becoming a core infrastructure, much like mobile operating systems or cloud computing platforms. According to him, Circle 's goal goes beyond stablecoins or payments, aiming to build an "operating system for the internet economy," where multiple large businesses jointly operate the infrastructure and participate in network governance.
Arc is positioned as a public blockchain geared towards institutional finance. Allaire argues that the digital economy is not just about transferring value, but also includes contracts, governance systems, and the entire operational mechanism of financial institutions. Therefore, Arc is designed to be able to “operate the real economy,” not just serve payments or cryptocurrency transactions.
According to the Token allocation plan, Circle holds 25% of the initial supply of 10 billion Token, allowing the company to operate the validator infrastructure and generate revenue from network fees and Staking. Approximately 60% of the Token will be allocated to the community for building, using, and contributing to the ecosystem, while the remaining 15% will be held in a long-term reserve fund. This strategy shows that Circle wants to build a multi-stakeholder blockchain model, rather than a closed ecosystem.
