#GateMeme狂欢季 #GateMeme Arc's First Day: BlackRock at the Helm, Wall Street Money Begins Moving On-Chain
On September 16, Arc, the Layer 1 public blockchain developed by Circle, officially launched. Its founding validator list includes 11 institutions, including BlackRock, Visa, Mastercard, DTCC, ICE, Standard Chartered Bank, and SBI Group, plus Circle itself for a total of 12 nodes.
Strictly speaking, Arc is not a public blockchain in the traditional sense. It is a hybrid chain with a “permissionless front end and permissioned back end”—anyone can deploy contracts and send transactions, but the ledger’s final state is determined through PoA consensus by the 12 institutional validators selected by Circle.
In essence, it has the core of a consortium chain wrapped in the appearance of a public blockchain, serving as a settlement network for regulated institutions. But with a group of Wall Street giants backing it, Arc attracted considerable attention even before launch.
Unexpectedly, however, the most active participants on this chain on its first day were Meme coin traders. There were 1 million transactions on the first day, but the real test had only just begun. About 2 hours after mainnet launch, the total amount of USDC on-chain reached 372 million, with approximately 176k addresses. By the end of the day, daily transactions had surpassed 1.16 million. This figure is not bad for a new public blockchain, but it still trails the explosive launch of Robinhood Chain. More importantly, Arc’s core design is pragmatic: Gas fees are paid directly in USDC, so institutions do not need to hold additional volatile tokens; it offers sub-second deterministic finality, making transactions irreversible once confirmed; and it is EVM-compatible, allowing Ethereum applications to migrate seamlessly.
Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire put it bluntly: Arc’s strategic value “goes beyond USDC.”
Meme Coins Steal the Spotlight from Institutions
Before launch, market participants had already begun gearing up. On September 14 and 15, Arc recorded more than 400k transactions per day, whereas just days earlier the figure had been only tens of thousands. Many users paid an 80% to 100% USDC premium to bridge over in advance.
On launch day, ARGUS’s market cap briefly reached $35 million, while TOLLY’s market cap surpassed $20 million, with an intraday gain of 2515%. One trader bought 12.1 million ARGUS for approximately $1,200, achieving a 302x return.
A public blockchain with institutional validators backed by BlackRock and Visa had Meme coins as its hottest sector on the first day. This contrast reflects Arc’s real predicament.
Three Signals More Worth Watching Than the Launch Itself
First, stablecoin issuers are transforming from “asset providers” into “infrastructure operators.” USDC’s annual transaction volume has reached the $9 trillion range. Once a payment pipeline reaches this scale, control over its operation is no longer something that can be outsourced.
Second, the “last mile” for institutional capital to move on-chain is being connected. DTCC plans to tokenize DTC-custodied assets on Arc in 2027, while BlackRock plans to deploy its BUIDL fund on Arc. These are not concepts; they are projects with timelines.
Third, Arc and Robinhood Chain are together defining the cold-start path for “institutional public blockchains”—first letting speculators build up activity, then introducing core financial use cases. But whether this path can work depends on whether Circle’s compliance DNA can tolerate a “speculate first, comply later” pace.
Arc’s launch is a landmark event signaling that stablecoins are moving from “trading tools” toward “settlement infrastructure.” But a more fundamental question has emerged: with Wall Street giants operating validator nodes, Meme coin players competing for tokens, and the regulatory framework still being contested—who will determine this chain’s “control”?
