TL;DR
- Arc Advancement: Circle is pushing Arc toward production after processing 150 million testnet transactions and attracting more than 100 institutional participants.
- Competitive Pressure: Tether dominates with 60.1% market share, $5.2 billion in 2025 revenue, 140 tons of gold, and the new USAT stablecoin, reinforcing its macroeconomic footprint.
- Global Expansion: Circle is scaling its Payments Network, integrating Arc with cross‑chain tools, partnering with Visa and LianLian Global, and growing USYC and StableFX as USDC circulation climbs to $73.7 billion.
Circle is accelerating its push into enterprise settlement with Arc, a Layer‑1 blockchain that the company positions as an Economic Operating System for global finance. The initiative arrives as Circle attempts to close a widening competitive gap with Tether, which now commands 60.1% of the $311 billion stablecoin market and generated $5.2 billion in revenue during 2025.
Arc Moves Toward Production as Institutional Interest Grows
Arc’s public testnet has processed over 150 million transactions since its October 2025 debut, supported by nearly 1.5 million wallets, with an average settlement time of 0.5 seconds. More than 100 institutions, including BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, BNY Mellon, Société Générale, and Visa, joined within the first 90 days. Circle executives say the network is advancing toward production by expanding validator distribution and establishing governance aligned with institutional compliance. Arc uses USDC as its gas token and targets deterministic sub‑second finality for regulated financial operations.
Circle Expands Infrastructure With Cross‑Chain and Developer Tools
Circle integrated Arc with its Cross‑Chain Transfer Protocol, now spanning 19 blockchains and processing $126 billion in cumulative volume. The company also introduced Gateway to unify USDC balances across networks and launched Build and App Kits to accelerate development. Meanwhile, the Circle Payments Network continues scaling, enrolling 29 financial institutions since May 2025, with 55 under review and 500 in the pipeline. Operating across eight countries, the network achieved $3.4 billion in annualized volume through partnerships with Binance, Corpay, FIS, Fiserv, and OKX.
Tether’s Expansion Raises Competitive Pressure
The issuer’s roadmap unfolds as Tether broadens its reach beyond stablecoins, accumulating 140 tons of gold worth $23 billion and launching USAT under the GENIUS Act. Tether captured 41.9% of all stablecoin‑related revenue in 2025 and holds more U.S. Treasuries than Germany, South Korea, or Australia. With a $186.8 billion market value, USDT remains the third‑largest digital asset globally, reinforcing Tether’s macroeconomic influence.
Visa began enabling U.S. institutions to settle in USDC on Solana, with Cross River Bank and Lead Bank already participating. Visa plans to operate an Arc validator node. In Asia, Circle partnered with LianLian Global to explore stablecoin‑backed merchant payments. Circle’s USYC fund grew more than 200% to $1.6 billion, while StableFX launched on Arc testnet for 24/7 institutional FX trading. Circle reported $214 million in net income for Q3 2025 as USDC circulation reached $73.7 billion.
