Arc Mainnet Eve: Who is Making Early Arrangements?

Written by: ChandlerZ, Foresight News

Robinhood Chain has pushed the daily DEX transaction volume to $989 million just two months after its launch, raising market expectations for the next institutional public chain.

On September 16, Circle's open blockchain network Arc will launch on the public mainnet. This is a Layer 1 primarily focused on stablecoin finance, initially using USDC to pay for Gas, with transactions achieving final confirmation within one second, maintained by a consortium of permissioned validators.

Where will the first batch of traffic flow? Meme projects have already opened for business, competing for token issuance entry. Everything is ready, just waiting for the favorable wind.

The 11 founding validators announced by Circle on August 5 include BlackRock, DTCC, Galaxy, Global Payments, ICE, Mastercard, MoneyGram, SBI Group, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo Corporation, and Visa. Arc is currently in the private mainnet phase, with over 100 institutions and ecosystem teams participating in its development.

BlackRock is expected to deploy its dollar institutional digital liquidity fund BUIDL to Arc, allowing institutional investors to complete fund subscriptions, redemptions, and capital deployments in a native USDC environment. Circle and DTC plan to advance the tokenization of assets held by the U.S. Depository Trust Company DTC starting in the second half of 2027, aiming to enable market participants to settle tokenized assets with stablecoins through third-party applications on Arc. BNY and Standard Chartered are also exploring integrated solutions for digital asset custody, foreign exchange, and repurchase infrastructure.

The Arc public testnet is expected to handle over 150 million transactions in the first 90 days, with approximately 1.5 million wallets initiating transactions. With the private mainnet launching in May, the network with chain ID 5042 has begun to see community RPCs, browsers, trading platforms, and tokens.

These tokens have already generated quotes and liquidity, but the current network is still defined by Circle as a private mainnet. Public network access will open on September 16, and the mainnet parameters for the official cross-chain tool are yet to be released.

Fomo and edgeX promise first-day access, Aave V4 still pending governance advancement

Fomo co-founder Se Yong Park stated on August 30 that Fomo will provide trading support on the first day of Arc's launch. Fomo is an application that combines token discovery, social dynamics, and cross-chain trading within a single account; the project revealed in April that its mobile registration has reached 500,000. Fomo has not yet announced the first batch of tokens supported on Arc, trading paths, and sources of liquidity.

Fomo currently supports Solana, Robinhood Chain, BNB Chain, Base, Ethereum, and Monad, allowing users to view transactions from other accounts, track profits and losses, and purchase tokens across chains within the app. After connecting to Arc, this frontend can directly bring existing users to the Arc asset page, but whether it can complete bridge-less transactions on the first day still depends on the routing and funding entry announced by Fomo later.

edgeX announced on September 3 that it will be a partner on the first day of Arc, planning to launch a 24-hour trading USD/JPY perpetual contract first, and provide over 150 perpetual markets covering U.S. stocks, commodities, and crypto assets, with margin, settlement, and fees all using native USDC. Circle Ventures has invested in edgeX, and the two have previously advanced the integration of native USDC and CCTP on EDGE Chain.

Circle expects to connect DeFi protocols and capital service providers such as Aave, Aerodrome, FalconX, Galaxy, GSR, Keyrock, Morpho, Nonco, Uniswap, and XFX on the first day of the public mainnet, with Rain, Thunes, and Wirex providing stablecoin payment services, and Binance Wallet, Chainlink, Fireblocks, Kraken, Ledger, MetaMask, Uniswap Labs, and Upbit providing wallet, trading, and infrastructure support. Aave Labs submitted a governance proposal in June to deploy Aave V4 on Arc, intending to open markets for USDC, EURC, WETH, and cirBTC around the mainnet launch. This deployment still needs to complete the Aave governance process.

According to this list, Uniswap and Aerodrome will provide spot exchanges and liquidity pools, while Aave and Morpho will handle collateral lending. Institutions like FalconX, GSR, Keyrock, and Nonco will be responsible for market making and capital allocation. The initial Gas, major trading pairs, and lending assets on Arc will revolve around USDC, and whether capital can simultaneously enter the Meme pool, stablecoin pool, and lending market on the first day will directly affect the slippage and borrowing capacity of each market.

Leading Memes begin to stratify, Tolly, Warp, and Arcpad compete for token issuance entry

On September 1, the Chinese community account ARC Chinese Research Station released a summary of popular Memes on Arc, with Arc hitects, FatCatBatRatWifHat, COOL, and WARP all making the top five. Arc odex data shows that the market capitalizations of Arc hitects, COOL, and FatCatBatRatWifHat are approximately $2.79 million, $2.31 million, and $1.16 million, respectively, corresponding to liquidity of about $90,800, $105,300, and $60,500, with 24-hour trader counts of 105, 193, and 73, respectively.

WARP and BEANCAT have market capitalizations of approximately $890,900 and $864,500, with liquidity in the pools both below $46,000.

Additionally, Arc uses USDC to cover both Gas and transaction pricing assets, allowing users to create, buy, and sell tokens without needing to prepare another network token in advance. As a result, launchpads generally connect USDC directly to joint curves or liquidity pools, but project teams have proposed different plans for price formation, LP attribution, and fee distribution.

Tolly has already been running a launchpad and DEX on chain ID 5042, with new projects entering the permanently locked USDC liquidity pool without going through a joint curve. A 1% fee is charged for each transaction, with 64% of the USDC fees generated from purchases going to the creator, 12% to holder rewards, 10% to the protocol, and the remaining portion used for repurchasing and burning TOLLY and corresponding project tokens; all fees from selling project tokens are completely burned.

Warp uses a joint curve, migrating to Warp Dex and burning LP once the token market capitalization reaches $69,000. Its cross-chain purchase module plans to burn USDC from Ethereum, Base, and Arbitrum through Circle CCTP, automatically completing purchases after minting on Arc. The Arc-side contract has been deployed, but the source chain contract had not gone live as of September 3.

Arcpad offers another solution on the public testnet, where tokens immediately enter Uniswap V3 after creation, without waiting for graduation or migration. The platform charges a 1% transaction fee, which is defaulted to be split equally between the protocol and the creator, with creators also able to share part of the revenue with holders. Arcpad disclosed that its contract has not yet undergone professional auditing. Tolly, Warp, and Arcpad are currently independent projects, and Circle has not endorsed their products or tokens.

RadarDEX undertakes the current ecosystem's market and issuance infrastructure, with its data being adopted by frontends like Arcodex, and the built-in launchers created and locked liquidity based on Uniswap V3. Sharc has chosen a joint curve and the plan to burn LP after graduation, clearly stating that it has not yet issued a platform token. With multiple launchpads emerging simultaneously, tokens with the same name and code may also be redeployed, making the contract address the only reliable identifier for distinguishing assets.

Interestingly, Circle also plans to launch a set of supporting products on September 16, including a composable application framework for on-chain workflows, AI-driven applications and smart contract building tools, issuance management capabilities for tokenizing real-world assets, and interactive interfaces for developers, users, and AI agents.

After the public mainnet opens on September 16, official cross-chain capital inflows, DEX liquidity, lending deposits, and active addresses will begin to form verifiable mainnet data, and the first-day products promised by Fomo and edgeX will also undergo actual trading verification on the same day.