Bankless · Wednesday, September 16, 2026
Circle has officially launched its new Layer 1 blockchain, ARK, designed to bridge traditional financial institutions with blockchain innovation. The ARK mainnet aims to provide regulated financial infrastructure with features like payment finality, sub-second settlement times, and the ability to pay gas fees in stablecoins like USDC.
“Today is the day of our launch. We're launching our mainnet. We've been working on it for years. We're very proud of the launch today. So it's the first day of a very long journey for us. So very excited to be here.”
“ARK is taking that idea of like building regulated financial infrastructure that bridges like what is traditional financial institutions and all this new innovation. and takes that idea forward and brings it to the local, brings it to an L1 layer.”
“Gas is in stable coins starting with USDC. So you don't have to hold a native network token.”