[Digital Today reporter Yoonseo Lee] Circle will open the public mainnet of its own blockchain, Arc, on Sept. 16 (local time).

On Aug. 5, the blockchain media outlet Decrypt reported that Circle, alongside its second-quarter earnings announcement, selected 11 institutions including Visa, Mastercard and BlackRock as founding validators.

The validators include BlackRock, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp (DTCC), Galaxy, Global Payments, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), Mastercard, MoneyGram, SBI Group, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo Corp and Visa. BlackRock plans to deploy its tokenised money market fund, BUIDL, on Arc, while DTCC plans to support tokenisation of custodied assets from the second half of 2027.

Arc currently operates in a private mainnet phase with more than 100 developers participating. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire (제레미 알레어) said at the earnings announcement that the testnet processed more than 500 million transactions across about 3 million wallets.

Early decentralised finance (DeFi) protocols participating include Aave, Morpho and Uniswap. Binance Wallet, Kraken, Ledger and MetaMask also provide access routes. Network fees are paid in Circle's stablecoin, USDC.

Circle announced its second-quarter results along with the Arc launch. Total revenue and reserve income in the second quarter was $701 million, up 7 percent from a year earlier. It rose slightly from the previous quarter but fell short of $770 million recorded in the fourth quarter of 2025. Reserve income rose 5 percent to $668 million, but the reserve yield fell 66 basis points to 3.5 percent.

Net income was $48 million. It returned to profit from a net loss of $482 million in the same period a year earlier. At that time, stock-based compensation costs related to its initial public offering were heavily reflected in results. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose 8 percent to $143 million.

USDC in circulation at quarter-end rose 19 percent to $73.3 billion. On-chain transaction volume rose 151 percent to $14.8 trillion. Circle's share of the fiat-collateralised stablecoin market fell to 27 percent. Allaire said, "The digital asset market itself continues to show a weak trend."

Its distribution agreement with Coinbase was renewed on existing terms. As a result, Circle will maintain the distribution and transaction cost structure of $410 million reflected this quarter.

Circle received final approval last month from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish Circle National Trust. It also secured a separate limited purpose trust charter from New York regulators. The federal approval allows regulated digital asset custody and opens a path for Circle to directly manage USDC reserves. Allaire said, "This infrastructure will be a way to expand Circle's infrastructure, from payments and capital markets to digital dollar use by companies around the world."

Growth in the payments segment also continued. The annualised transaction volume of the Circle Payments Network was $14.7 billion, up 76 percent from the previous quarter, and participating financial institutions totalled 175. Allaire said the figure rose to $23.0 billion as of July 31.

Circle also raised its forecast for other revenue by about twofold, to $310 million to $330 million from $150 million to $170 million. The company cited recognition of revenue from pre-sales of the 'ARK' token as one of the reasons for the increase.

This announcement stands out in that it tied together Circle's blockchain network expansion, earnings improvement and regulatory approvals. The Arc validator lineup and trust bank approval showed Circle's direction of expanding USDC into payments and custody infrastructure.

Arc Mainnet launches September 16. Arc is an open blockchain network being built for the world’s financial markets, real-time money movement, and agentic economic activity. Arc’s founding validator cohort includes @BlackRock, @The_DTCC, @galaxyhq, @GlobalPayInc, @Mastercard,… pic.twitter.com/uQDzS9cCo9