Circle Internet Group (NYSE: CRCL) has closed a $222 million presale of Arc, the native token of its new institutional blockchain, in one of the most consequential on-chain capital raises ever conducted by a publicly listed company.
The round values the Arc network at a $3 billion fully diluted valuation, and was disclosed alongside Circle’s Q1 2026 earnings on Monday morning.
The raise was led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z crypto) with a $75 million commitment, joined by a consortium of the world’s most powerful financial institutions including BlackRock, Apollo Funds, Intercontinental Exchange (parent of NYSE), SBI Group, Janus Henderson Investors, Standard Chartered Ventures, General Catalyst, Marshall Wace, ARK Invest, IDG Capital, Haun Ventures, and Bullish, the crypto exchange that owns CoinDesk. Official confirmation came in Circle’s Q1 release and was first reported by CNBC.
Of Arc’s initial 10 billion token supply, Circle holds a 25% stake, which allows the company to operate validator infrastructure, generate new fee revenue, and earn staking income. The majority, 60%, is allocated to builders, users, and contributors on the network, with the remaining 15% set aside as a long-term reserve.
Notably, this makes Circle the first publicly listed company in history to conduct a token presale. Arc itself is not yet trading on the open market, and the $3 billion figure is a fully diluted network valuation derived from the presale price rather than a secondary market quote.
“We Are Entering the Operating System Business”
In an exclusive interview with CNBC, Circle Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO Jeremy Allaire framed the launch as a strategic pivot far beyond stablecoins. “[Blockchain] infrastructure is becoming as important as mobile operating systems or cloud platforms,” Allaire said. “We want to build an operating system that has many, many stakeholders in it, major companies who are running the infrastructure with us and who ultimately help to govern it.”
He continued, “We’re becoming a broader internet platform company. We’re entering the operating system business and we’re doing it by building this multi-stakeholder distributed model with a token, with a distributed network. But it is an operating system business. And we’re also getting into the apps business.”
Allaire described Arc as infrastructure designed to “run the actual economy,” not merely settle stablecoin payments, noting that “the economy is not just representations of values, it’s every contract that undergirds those financial relationships, the systems of governance that we use to govern all these economic institutions.”
He emphasized the rise of an agent-led economy, where AI agents handle the operational and contractual work currently managed by humans, declaring: “We’re entering this era where software machines will power the economic system. Software will do most of the work, that is what AI agents represent.”
Alongside the raise, Circle unveiled an Agent Stack including Circle CLI, Agent Wallets, and an Agent Marketplace, designed to help developers build AI agents that transact, access online services, and make payments in USDC across multiple blockchains. The full CEO commentary on the Q1 print is available here: Circle CEO on Q1 results — USDC accounts for about 80% of dollar digital currency transactions.
What is Arc
Arc is a public blockchain purpose-built for institutional finance, billed by Circle as an “Economic Operating System.” Its public testnet went live in October 2025 and has already attracted more than 100 institutional participants, including BlackRock, Visa, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, and Amazon Web Services, with mainnet beta still scheduled for sometime in 2026.
The chain offers deterministic transaction finality, gas fees priced in USDC and other stablecoins, compliant privacy features for institutional workflows, and bridges to other blockchains as well as traditional financial systems.
Circle has also outlined a roadmap targeting post-quantum signature support at mainnet, with quantum resistance extending across wallets, validators, and broader infrastructure.
The ARC token whitepaper, published the same day, outlines the asset’s role in governance, security, and network operations, with a future transition to proof-of-stake under consideration.
Q1 2026 results: A quarter that reframes Circle’s story
Circle’s Q1 print, posted to its IR portal at investor.circle.com, underscored why the Arc bet matters. The company reported total revenue and reserve income of $694 million, up 20% year-over-year, with reserve income of $653 million growing 17% YoY, driven by 39% growth in average USDC in circulation and partially offset by a 66 bps decline in the reserve return rate. Other revenue came in at $42 million, up $21 million YoY on strong subscription, services, and transaction revenue growth.
USDC in circulation hit $77.0 billion, a 28% YoY jump, while on-chain transaction volume in USDC surged 263% YoY to $21.5 trillion. USDC now accounts for roughly 80% of all dollar digital currency transactions globally.
From Circle’s official channel on X: “The Internet’s largest paradigm shift is happening now, and our Q1 results underscore Circle’s role at the center of these changes.” Importantly, current guidance does not yet incorporate financial impact from the Arc token presale, Arc incentive programs, or future Arc revenue streams.
Stock price reaction across the cap table
- Circle Internet Group closed Friday at $113.67, giving the stablecoin issuer a market capitalization of about $28.1 billion.
Shares jumped to $121.55 in pre-market trading on Monday after the company released its Q1 results and announced the Arc payments network, before easing to $118.65 after hours. The stock has traded between $49.90 and $298.99 over the past 52 weeks.
- BlackRock was trading at $1,084.83, up 1.6% on the day. The asset management giant has a market cap of roughly $168.4 billion, with shares ranging from $917.39 to $1,219.94 over the last year.
BlackRock currently trades at a P/E ratio of 27.33 and reported trailing 12-month EPS of $39.70.
- Apollo Global Management finished the session at $133.20, gaining 4.23%, with pre-market trading indicating a slight uptick to $133.58. The firm is valued at around $76.8 billion and recently declared a $0.562 per-share cash dividend, with an ex-dividend date of May 19, 2026.
- Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, closed at $155.82, down slightly by 0.19%. Its market capitalization stands at approximately $88.1 billion, and the company has been expanding its digital asset efforts, including pilots involving tokenized stocks and sustainable bonds.
- SBI Holdings was trading in Tokyo at ¥3,055, up 0.79% on the day. The Japanese financial conglomerate has a market value of about ¥2.02 trillion and offers a dividend yield of 3.11%.
- Janus Henderson Group closed at $51.69, essentially flat on the day. The investment manager has a market capitalization of nearly $8.0 billion, a 3.10% dividend yield, and its shares are near the upper end of their 52-week range of $35.56 to $53.76.
- Arc itself remains in presale and is not yet publicly tradable. The $3 billion fully diluted network valuation reflects the presale price, not a secondary market quote.
Why this matters: Offense and defense
a16z crypto, in a blog post published Monday morning, framed the strategic logic bluntly: “While USDC has become the trusted digital dollar for banks, corporations, and financial institutions seeking the speed of crypto without its volatility, there remains a problem. The internet infrastructure which USDC runs on today wasn’t built with big institutions in mind. It was built for individuals and crypto enthusiasts. That’s where Arc comes in.”
The Arc initiative is as much defensive as it is expansive. Today, USDC depends heavily on Ethereum and Solana for settlement and on partners like Coinbase for distribution. With the GENIUS Act signed into law last year and the STABLE Act set for an initial vote this week in the Senate Banking Committee, regulation is increasingly legitimizing stablecoins but also opening the door for banks and fintechs to launch competing dollar tokens, potentially removing the need for a third-party issuer.
Owning the rails reduces Circle’s dependence on third-party infrastructure and rival issuers, while opening fresh recurring revenue streams via validator operations, staking, and fee capture.
The Return of the token sale, reimagined
Circle is the first publicly listed company to conduct a token presale, breathing institutional legitimacy into a fundraising format that became infamous during the 2017 ICO boom, when projects launched with little oversight, leading to high-profile failures and scams.
Under the Trump administration’s crypto-friendly posture, the SEC has shifted focus toward frameworks for compliant tokenized securities and on-chain capital formation, conditions Allaire believes will normalize on-chain offerings as a parallel to traditional IPOs.
“It is a major shift in how stakeholders can participate in the growth of networks,” Allaire said. “Every company in the world, over time, will be tokenized, meaning your shares will be tokens, and you will use digital tokens as mechanisms of engagement with your customers and stakeholders.”
The bigger picture
Circle’s Arc raise signals a structural change for the entire stablecoin sector. The original USDC business, dependent on Treasury yield and third-party blockchain rails, is graduating into a vertically integrated stack spanning issuance, settlement, infrastructure, agent tooling, and applications.
With BlackRock, Apollo, ICE, Standard Chartered, and a16z all aligned on a single ledger, Arc has assembled a roster of backers that very few Layer-1 blockchains in history can match.
The mainnet launch, expected later in 2026, will be the real test. Until then, $222 million and a $3 billion valuation have placed Arc squarely on the institutional map.
Reporting by Crypto Times. This is a developing story. Updates will follow Circle’s Q1 2026 earnings call at 8:00 AM ET.
Also Read: Circle Pushes US to Lead Global Stablecoin Regulation Race
