DFNS now supports Arc with full Tier-1 integration, live from the network’s public mainnet launch. Arc is the Layer 1 blockchain built by Circle, the issuer of USDC and EURC, and designed from the ground up for stablecoin finance: dollar-denominated fees, deterministic sub-second finality, and a founding validator set drawn from the institutions that run global markets. From today, institutions on DFNS can hold, move, and govern assets on Arc through the same platform, API, and controls they use across every other network, with the Circle stack, Circle Mint, CCTP, and now Arc, operating end to end on DFNS.
What is Arc?
Arc is an EVM-compatible Layer 1 purpose-built for stablecoin payments, FX, and tokenized assets rather than general-purpose applications. Where most public chains price every transaction in a volatile native token, Arc uses USDC itself as gas: every fee on the network is denominated in dollars. Where most chains offer probabilistic finality measured in minutes, Arc’s Malachite consensus engine, a Tendermint-derived BFT design, delivers deterministic sub-second finality, with an execution layer built on Reth so existing Ethereum tooling works unchanged.
Circle launched Arc’s public testnet in October 2025 with more than a hundred institutional and ecosystem builders, ran a private mainnet phase, and opens the public mainnet on September 16, 2026. The network launches with eleven founding validators alongside Circle: BlackRock, DTCC, Galaxy, Global Payments, ICE, Mastercard, MoneyGram, SBI Group, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo Corporation, and Visa. This is not a chain waiting for institutions to arrive, they are operating it.
Key characteristics include:
- USDC as native gas: transaction fees denominated in dollars, so treasury teams never hold a volatile gas token to keep operations running.
- Sub-second deterministic finality: Malachite consensus settles in under 500 milliseconds, with no reorganization risk once a block is final, the property payments and settlement actually require.
- Full EVM compatibility: an execution layer built on Reth, so Solidity contracts, standard token formats, and existing Ethereum tooling deploy without modification.
- Opt-in privacy: configurable confidentiality for transactions that need it, without a separate privacy chain.
- Integrated FX: a native StableFX engine for multi-currency stablecoin exchange, positioning the network for cross-border payments and treasury use cases.
- Complementary to the Circle stack: Arc is designed to work alongside Circle’s cross-chain products, CCTP and Gateway, so USDC remains available everywhere while institutional settlement gains a home built for it.
Why DFNS and Arc are a strong match
A settlement network answers where institutions settle. It does not, on its own, answer how they operate on it, meaning who can move what, under which approvals, with what evidence. That is the layer DFNS provides, and with Arc the fit is unusually direct.
For institutions running on DFNS, Circle’s infrastructure was already integrated at two points:
- Circle Mint brings fiat in and out through USDC minting and redemption,
- and CCTP moves native USDC across chains in a single call.
Arc adds the settlement layer built for the asset. On DFNS, the entire cycle now runs as one governed flow. Mint USDC from a Circle treasury account, move it onto Arc through CCTP, settle payments and tokenized assets on Arc with dollar-denominated fees and sub-second finality, and redeem to fiat, every step passing the Policy Engine before anything signs, every action in one audit trail.
Because Arc is EVM-compatible, institutions get the full depth of DFNS EVM support from day one: token standards, smart contract interactions through Bring Your Own ABI, account abstraction, and more, under the same controls that extend across Arc and every other network they operate. And because Arc’s gas is USDC, one of the quiet operational burdens of running on a public chain disappears: there is no separate native token to acquire, hold, and top up. Fee management becomes a stablecoin balance like any other.
Full Tier-1 support on DFNS
DFNS provides full Tier-1 support for Arc, giving institutions a complete infrastructure layer:
- Wallet creation: instant provisioning via API or dashboard
- Native transfers: send and receive USDC on the network
- Token transfers: support for stablecoins and tokenized assets issued on Arc
- Smart contract execution: interact with onchain applications and financial workflows, including any contract via Bring Your Own ABI
- Transaction broadcast: submit transactions to the network
- Secure signing: operations run through DFNS key infrastructure with no single point of failure
- Balance retrieval: query balances across wallets
- Webhook notifications: real-time transaction and balance updates
Use cases
Arc’s combination of dollar-denominated fees, deterministic finality, EVM compatibility, and an institutional validator set makes it a natural environment for regulated stablecoin finance. Examples include:
- Stablecoin payments and settlement: move USDC between counterparties with fees in dollars and finality in under a second, governed end to end through DFNS
- Cross-border payments and FX: pair Arc’s native StableFX with DFNS treasury tooling to run multi-currency stablecoin flows under policy
- Tokenized assets: issue and service tokenized funds, securities, and deposits on a network where DTCC and BlackRock are building, with DFNS handling wallets, transfer controls, and audit
- Onchain treasury: operate corporate and institutional treasury on Arc, with CCTP moving USDC in and out and Circle Mint closing the fiat loop
- Payments infrastructure: give payment companies and fintechs a settlement layer whose fee structure matches the asset they move
Arc joins 100+ blockchain networks supported on DFNS, the core banking platform behind 500+ banks, fintechs, payment companies, and institutions worldwide.
Get started
- Learn more about onchain core banking: dfns.co
- Explore the platform and documentation: docs.dfns.co
- Start building today on DFNS: app.dfns.io/get-started
- Talk to our team about Arc: sales@dfns.co