A New Foundation for Finance
Arc is a Layer-1 blockchain purpose-built to solve the core challenges of institutional finance, creating a global, regulated, and efficient settlement layer for the internet economy.
The Three Pillars of Arc
Arc's architecture is a purpose-built foundation for modern finance. Click each pillar to explore the detailed technical innovations within.
1. Stable Economic Model
Arc's economy is designed for predictability and stability, removing barriers to enterprise adoption.
- USDC Native Gas: Aligns the unit of account for value transfer with the unit for transaction cost, eliminating volatility.
- Predictable Fee Market: Inspired by EIP-1559, Arc uses a fee smoothing mechanism with a bounded base fee to dampen short-term volatility and keep costs consistently low.
- On-Chain Treasury: Fees are directed to a network treasury to fund long-term growth and ecosystem development, creating a sustainable model.
2. High-Performance Consensus
Arc provides the institutional-grade settlement assurances required to bring trillions of dollars of financial activity on-chain.
- Malachite BFT Engine: A high-performance implementation of Tendermint that provides Byzantine Fault Tolerance, enabling high throughput (3,000-10,000+ TPS).
- Deterministic Finality: Unlike Proof-of-Work, a transaction on Arc is either unconfirmed or 100% final and irreversible in under a second. There is no probabilistic state.
- Permissioned Validator Set: The network is secured by a known, vetted set of geographically distributed institutions, providing a strong deterrent against malicious behavior and aligning with emerging regulatory frameworks.
3. Compliant Privacy Framework
Arc's phased, modular approach to privacy delivers confidentiality without compromising on institutional compliance.
- Phased Rollout: Begins with auditable confidential transfers (shielded amounts) and evolves towards fully private state and computation for complex financial logic.
- Modular & Future-Proof: Leverages Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) initially for performance, with a "pluggable backend" to integrate future technologies like FHE or ZK-proofs as they mature.
- "View Keys" for Compliance: The core of the model. Institutions retain control and can grant authorized third parties (like auditors) read-only access to specific transaction data, satisfying regulatory obligations like the Travel Rule.
An Ecosystem for Financial Innovation
Arc is an open invitation for developers and institutions to build the next wave of finance. Hover over each card to discover what's possible.
Global Payments
Leverage Arc's speed and Circle's CCTP to enable instant, low-cost cross-border payments, remittances, and seamless multi-chain treasury operations for businesses.
Capital Markets
Issue, trade, and settle regulated Real-World Assets (RWAs) like tokenized credit, equities, and funds. Utilize the native FX engine for 24/7 programmable PvP settlement.
Enterprise Treasury
Build autonomous, AI-native agents to manage corporate treasuries, execute programmable spending policies, and optimize working capital in real-time with assets like USYC.
See Privacy & Finality in Action
This automated demo simulates an enterprise treasury payment on Arc. Press play or step through manually to see how speed, certainty, and confidentiality are combined.
An enterprise initiates a 2,500,000 USDC payment to a supplier.
Public Ledger View
Sender's Private View
Amount: 2,500,000 USDC
Arc's Opt-In Privacy encrypts the transaction amount before it's written to the ledger.
Public Ledger View
To: 0x456...def
Amount: EncryptedData
Sender's Private View
Amount: 2,500,000 USDC
The transaction achieves deterministic finality in <1 second. It is now 100% irreversible.
Public Ledger View
Finality: Deterministic
Recipient's Private View
Amount: +2,500,000 USDC
Months later, an auditor uses a "view key" to compliantly inspect the shielded transaction details.
Public Ledger View
Auditor's View (via Key)
Amount: 2,500,000 USDC
Test Your Knowledge
You've explored the details. Solidify your understanding with a final quiz on Arc's core technology and purpose.