Speaking to CNBC’s Sara Eisen on the sidelines of the 2025 Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Jeremy Allaire of Circle Internet Group (CRCL) described Arc as “a cost-effective operating system for the Internet,” arguing that basic financial workflows scale on-chain and require predictable cost and performance.
He said Arc is designed for payments, foreign exchange, lending and capital markets activities, with dollar-denominated fees, sub-second settlement and privacy controls intended to allow businesses to protect sensitive balances or flows when necessary. The public testnet went live on October 28, with the mainnet targeted for 2026 after builders tested smart contracts, transaction flows, and token launches.
Read more: USDC issuer Circle begins testing Arc blockchain with large institutions on board
Allaire highlighted USDC as the practical bridge for these use cases. He pushed back on the idea that growth is stable, saying usage has expanded through 2025 and that demand from emerging markets is “very significant,” led by businesses that want to settle in dollars without the friction of traditional cross-border banking. He pointed to the Middle East, where companies are using digital dollars to quickly transfer value between trading partners.
This focus aligns with Circle’s plans in the UAE. Allaire referenced the regulatory steps that allow the company to operate in the region and support institutions that want on-chain dollar rails. He also linked the momentum to policy clarity, saying recent U.S. legislation on stablecoin payments has helped large companies integrate stablecoin payments, FX and credit flows.
Regarding the scope of the ecosystem, Allaire said Arc’s announcement involved more than 100 companies from the banking, payments, big tech and AI sectors. He defined Arc’s business model as transactional and ecosystem-driven, with a long-term goal for widely distributed operations and governance rather than a single company’s walled garden.
The framework is simple: Arc provides a high-throughput, dollar-priced environment for native stablecoin funding, while USDC serves as a unit of settlement and fees that developers can plan for. Allaire’s message to businesses was that predictable costs, rapid finality, and compliance-friendly privacy can move more of the “financial guts” of commerce onto programmable rails.
