Canonical: https://builtonarc.app/guides/arc-vs-solana-for-payments # Arc vs Solana for payments: switching SVM for EVM, and what you'd give up Updated 2026-09-02. Arc vs Solana compared for payments builders — stablecoin depth, fee model, SVM vs EVM tooling, and named payment partners, as of 2 Sep 2026. > This is the payments-builder version of "Arc vs Solana," not the memecoin one — for launch-and-trade comparisons, that's Meme Central's territory, linked below. On the payments axis specifically, Solana is a live chain with roughly $10 billion in stablecoin supply, sub-cent fees, and named partners including Visa, PayPal, and Western Union. Arc is pre-mainnet until 16 September 2026, built specifically around USDC-native gas and an institutional validator cohort. The real switching cost between them isn't fees or speed — both are fast and cheap — it's rewriting a Rust/SVM stack into Solidity/EVM, or vice versa. ## Solana's stablecoin-payments position, confirmed Solana carries roughly $10 billion in stablecoin supply and processes around $200 billion in monthly stablecoin transfer volume, with a median transaction fee of $0.0013, per Solana's own stablecoin materials ([solana.com/solutions/stablecoins](https://solana.com/solutions/stablecoins)). Circle issues USDC natively on Solana. The network's broader activity claims run to 50 million monthly active addresses and 3.5 billion monthly transactions, with an ongoing push to cut slot time from 400ms to 200ms ([solana.com](https://solana.com)). The payments-specific partner list is the most relevant detail for this comparison: Visa has confirmed settlement in USDC on Solana at meaningful volume; PayPal issues its own stablecoin, PYUSD, on the network; Western Union has announced its USDPT stablecoin launching on Solana in 2026; and MoneyGram launched "Ramps" on Solana in August 2026, offering a single API for cash deposits across more than 25 countries and cash withdrawals across more than 170 countries and territories ([solana.com/news](https://solana.com/news)). Solana's own July 2026 ecosystem roundup cites payments reaching more than 330,000 merchants. A newer protocol, x402, built for machine and AI-agent payments specifically, has reportedly processed around 200 million transactions and $50 billion in volume on Solana. That's a genuinely deep, multi-sided payments ecosystem already in production — not a roadmap. ## Arc's position, for contrast Arc is Circle's stablecoin-native Layer 1, public-testnet-live since 28 October 2025, mainnet scheduled 16 September 2026. Gas is paid natively in USDC (EIP-1559-style base fee, 18 decimals), with a paymaster system available for other stablecoins. Consensus is Malachite, a Tendermint-based BFT engine targeting roughly 780ms finality across a permissioned validator set of around 100 institutions. Its founding validator cohort — BlackRock, DTCC, Galaxy, Global Payments, ICE, Mastercard, MoneyGram, SBI Group, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo Corporation, and Visa — overlaps Solana's own payment partners in at least two names: Visa and MoneyGram both appear as serious participants on both networks, another concrete example of payments incumbents spreading commitments across multiple chains rather than picking one. ## Fees and throughput: both are already cheap, so this isn't the deciding factor Solana's median transaction fee sits at roughly $0.0013, denominated in SOL, so the dollar cost floats with SOL's market price even though the fee itself is small in practice. Arc's fee is denominated directly in USDC, so the dollar cost of a transaction is fixed and known in advance rather than tracking a separate asset's price — but Arc has not published a mainnet per-transaction fee figure as of 2 September 2026, so the actual dollar comparison against Solana's $0.0013 median is not yet confirmed. The honest framing: Solana's fees are cheap today, tested under real load, denominated in a volatile asset. Arc's fees are designed to be predictable and dollar-denominated, untested under real load, with the specific number still unknown. "Predictable" and "cheaper" are different claims, and a builder shouldn't assume Arc wins on cost just because its fee asset is more stable — that's a separate question from the fee's actual size, which remains open until mainnet. ## Tooling: the real switching cost, and it's not small This is where the two chains genuinely diverge, and it's the axis most "Arc vs Solana" comparisons undersell. Solana runs its own virtual machine (the SVM), not the EVM — programs are written in Rust (or increasingly other languages targeting the SVM), and the dominant wallet and tooling stack (Phantom, Solana's own SDKs) is built specifically around that runtime. A team with an existing Solana codebase, Rust engineering expertise, and integrations built against Solana-specific tooling faces a genuine rewrite, not a redeploy, to move to Arc. Arc runs standard EVM — Solidity, MetaMask, ethers.js, and the broader Ethereum tooling ecosystem all apply directly. For a team already building in Solidity, or already deployed on an EVM chain elsewhere (Ethereum, an L2, another EVM L1), Arc is a much shorter on-ramp than Solana would be, because the language, the wallet standard, and most of the developer tooling carry over with minimal changes. That means the tooling decision often precedes the payments-feature decision in practice: a team's existing engineering stack and hiring pool for Rust versus Solidity developers is frequently the deciding factor before fee models or partner lists even enter the conversation. ## What's actually live vs. what's a date on a calendar Solana's payments ecosystem — the stablecoin supply, the fee figures, the Visa and MoneyGram integrations — is measurable on-chain today. Arc's equivalent claims are all pre-mainnet: Circle states more than 100 ecosystem and institutional builders are active on a private mainnet ahead of the 16 September public launch, which signals real commitment but isn't the same as verifiable public transaction data. Everything about Arc's live fee behavior, validator conduct, and actual throughput under load remains untested until that date. ## Which fits which job A team already building in Rust or already live on Solana, whose product needs the deepest currently-available stablecoin liquidity and the widest set of already-integrated payment partners, has a strong, tested case to stay on or build for Solana today. A team building in Solidity, already EVM-native, whose product specifically needs USDC-denominated gas pricing and an institutional, named validator cohort for compliance reasons, has a case to build for Arc's 16 September mainnet — with the standing caveat that Arc's live performance is unverified until then. Built on Arc doesn't rank the two; the tooling switching cost alone is often decisive before either chain's payments features are weighed. If you're comparing Arc and Solana specifically for memecoin launch-and-trade activity rather than payments infrastructure, that's a different comparison with different criteria — see Meme Central's Arc vs Solana guide instead. Built on Arc is an independent directory. Arc is a Circle product; we are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by Circle. Sources: - [Solana — official site](https://solana.com) - [Solana: stablecoin solutions](https://solana.com/solutions/stablecoins) - [Solana news](https://solana.com/news) - [Circle: multi-chain USDC on Solana](https://www.circle.com/en/multi-chain-usdc/solana) - [Circle Announces Founding Validator Cohort and Major Integrations for Arc](https://www.circle.com/pressroom/circle-announces-founding-validator-cohort-and-major-integrations-for-arc-ahead-of-september-16-mainnet-launch) ## Questions **How much stablecoin liquidity does Solana carry?** Roughly $10 billion in stablecoin supply and about $200 billion in monthly stablecoin transfer volume, per Solana's own materials as of this writing. **What's the fee difference between Arc and Solana?** Solana's median fee is about $0.0013, denominated in SOL (so its dollar value floats with SOL's price). Arc's fee is denominated directly in USDC, but the actual per-transaction dollar figure at mainnet is not yet confirmed. **Is Arc EVM-compatible like Solana?** No — Solana runs its own SVM, not the EVM. Arc runs standard EVM, so a team's existing Solidity or Rust codebase is the more decisive switching-cost factor than either chain's payments features. **Does Visa work with both chains?** Yes. Visa is a named Arc founding validator and also settles in USDC on Solana at reported volume — another example of a payments incumbent maintaining presence across multiple chains rather than choosing one. **Is Arc live yet?** No. Arc's public testnet has run since 28 October 2025, but mainnet launches 16 September 2026. Solana's payments ecosystem, by contrast, is live and measurable today. **Is this guide about memecoins?** No — this is the payments/builder comparison only. See Meme Central's Arc vs Solana guide for the memecoin-specific angle.