Circle launches ARC project with institutional support, raising $222 million in pre-sale

Circle, the company that issues the stable digital currency USDC, successfully raised $222 million through a pre-sale of its new digital currency ARC (connected to the upcoming Arc blockchain network), a move that reflects the growing interest of major institutions in digital financial infrastructure.

According to the company, the project’s fully diluted market capitalization rose to approximately $3 billion with participation from prominent figures in finance and technology, including:

“BlackRock”, “ARK Invest”, “Bullish”, “Intercontinental Exchange”, “Standard Chartered Ventures” and “SBI Holdings”.

The announcement comes as the company posted strong financial results in the first quarter of the year, with USDC circulation growing by 28% to $77 billion, while network transaction volume increased by more than 260% to $21.5 trillion.

Circle’s revenue and reserves in the first quarter were $694 million, an annual growth rate of 20%.

The company also released an ARC digital currency white paper, which explains that the new asset will play a key role in the governance, security and operations of the Arc network under a distributed multi-party model based on digital assets and decentralized architecture.

The company’s CEO Jeremy Allaire told CNBC that Circle is getting into what he called the operating system business by building a distributed model based on digital tokens and open networks, adding that the company is also preparing to expand into blockchain-based applications and services.

Allaire pointed out that the launch of the company’s “Agent Stack” platform aims to develop a reliable structure for artificial intelligence-powered economic activities, which will help build a more programmable financial system within the Internet.

After the news was announced, the company’s stock CRCL rose more than 2% in pre-market trading, driven by progress in political negotiations on stable currency regulation legislation in the United States, continuing recent gains after rising more than 20% last week.

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