The private token sale for Circle’s Arc blockchain was led by a16z crypto, and included BlackRock, Apollo, and Intercontinental Exchange.
USDC issuer Circle announced the completion of the presale for its stablecoin-focused blockchain Arc, raising $222 million in token sales, as part of its Q1 2026 report, published on Monday, May 11.
The presale, which gives the Layer 1 chain a fully diluted valuation of $3 billion, was led by a16z crypto, which bought $75 million worth of Arc’s native token, Circle’s CEO Jeremy Allaire told CNBC.
Other participants in the Arc presale included BlackRock, Apollo Funds, NYSE parent firm Intercontinental Exchange, ARK Invest, SBI Group, Janus Henderson Investors, Standard Chartered Ventures, General Catalyst, IDG Capital, Haun Ventures, CoinDesk parent company Bullish, and Marshall Wace, according to Circle’s first quarter report.
Circle also announced that it is building new permissionless AI agent infrastructure and developer tools, including Circle CLI (command line interface), Agent Wallets, and Agent Marketplace. The new services will complement its existing gas-free Nanopayments tool for AI agents, which launched on mainnet across eleven blockchains last month.
Circle first unveiled Arc last August, framing the network as a stablecoin-native L1. Arc’s public testnet went live in October, while mainnet is expected to launch later this year, Allaire previously said during the firm’s Q4 2025 earnings call. During that call, Allaire also first discussed a native Arc token, saying the company was exploring the concept at the time.
Circle shares are trading around $114 today, up just 0.6%. Circle went public less than a year ago, in a blockbuster IPO last June.
Also in today’a Q1 results, Circle said that on-chain transaction volume for USDC grew 263% last quarter to $21.5 trillion.