Arc launches with integration into Circle’s platform, including the USDC stablecoin, the company said in a Wednesday (Sept. 16) news release.
“Arc is the single most significant launch in Circle’s history since USDC itself, and it is the embodiment of the premise we have operated on for thirteen years: money should work the way the internet works,” said Jeremy Allaire, Circle’s founder, chairman and CEO. “USDC was step one. Arc is the network built for what comes next.”
The agentic and on-chain economy, he added, are “the same economy seen from two sides,” and both require “infrastructure that never closes, settles in under a second, and is trusted by the institutions that anchor the global financial system.”
Circle bills Arc as the first blockchain designed with the idea of artificial intelligence (AI) agents serving as “economic actors” in mind.
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“Agents are already performing economic tasks with Circle’s open, programmable payments products, including executing trades, managing payments, routing liquidity, and executing contracts on behalf of people and businesses,” the release added.
USDC makes up 98.8% of agent-driven transaction volume, Circle said. Since the company introduced its Agent Stack in May, the vast majority of agent-to-agent payments settling over the x402 standard have settled in USDC.
“Arc is the first blockchain designed from genesis for this new class of participant,” the company said.
PYMNTS Intelligence examined the continued rise of agentic commerce in the recent report “Will the 2026 Shopping Season Go Agentic?”
Research from that report found that 132 million U.S. adults — nearly half the adult population — have made a retail purchase with AI, with 22% of those surveyed now starting online retail research using an artificial intelligence tool.
The research also shows consumers growing more cautious as “the agent gets closer to the money,” with just 24% saying they would allow an agent to both shop and buy.
“That doesn’t mean agentic commerce is a false start. It means the market is building toward a more controlled form of delegation,” the report added.
“One where the agent does the work, the consumer sets the rules, a familiar payment provider protects the credential, and the transaction pauses when the choice becomes consequential.”
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