USDC on Circle's new Arc chain: what to check before your first transfer

Circle opens the mainnet of its own blockchain, Arc, to the general public on this September 16, 2026. For you as an investor, exactly one thing changes for now: an additional entry will gradually appear in the withdrawal menus of exchanges and in the network lists of wallets, and it lets you send USDC. Before you click that entry for the first time, four points are worth a checking look: the network data, the fee model, the bridge and the address. Here they are in order, with measured figures instead of announcement prose. We queried the chain ourselves on the morning of the opening rather than retelling press releases. Arc in one sentence: Circle's own layer 1 with USDC as the gas token Arc is a standalone blockchain built by Circle, the company that issues the dollar stablecoin USDC. A layer 1 is a blockchain that settles its transactions itself and needs no other chain beneath it. That sets Arc apart from rollups such as Arbitrum or Base, which draw their security from Ethereum and whose price you can follow on our Ethereum price prediction. The distinctive part sits in the fuel. On almost every other chain you pay the network fee in a fluctuating currency: in ETH on Ethereum, ...