Every project building on Arc

As of 2 September 2026, roughly 100 entries populate this directory across ten categories, and none of them is live on Arc mainnet — mainnet opens 16 September 2026. What exists today is a mix of testnet deployments, named integration partners from Circle's own announcements, and projects that have said they intend to build on Arc but have shown no public product. This page explains how those are told apart and where to find each kind.

Built on Arc is an independent directory of every project, protocol, and financial institution that has a public, verifiable connection to Arc, Circle's stablecoin-native Layer-1. It is not affiliated with Circle, and it is not a ranked "best of" list. Every entry carries five things — a Builds on Arc sentence, a role, a category and subcategory, a status with dated evidence, and a tier — plus a verification block. On-chain checks apply only to Deploys and Issues roles, and only where relevant. This guide is the map: what the directory covers, how the two classes of builder differ, how to read the status system, and where each category lives.

What this directory covers

Arc is an EVM-compatible Layer-1 built by Circle for stablecoin settlement: gas is paid in USDC, consensus runs on a Tendermint-based engine called Malachite with sub-second finality, and the validator set is permissioned rather than open. Public testnet has been live since 28 October 2025; mainnet is scheduled for 16 September 2026. Circle says more than 100 ecosystem and institutional builders have been active on a private mainnet ahead of that date, but "active on private mainnet" isn't "live," and this directory does not blur the two.

Every entry here has a public source: an official announcement, a project's own site or social account, a Circle press release, or a testnet deployment we could independently verify. Projects that appear only in aggregator round-ups or unsourced "ecosystem map" graphics do not get an entry until we can verify them ourselves.

Two kinds of builder on Arc

Arc's builder base splits cleanly into two classes, and conflating them is the fastest way to misread the ecosystem.

Class A — web3-native. Launchpads, DEXs, NFT and meme infrastructure, and general-purpose crypto tooling built specifically for Arc or ported to it early — TowerExchange, Radar DEX, AstraPump, Lunex, Hinkal, ARCLaunch, uarc.me and ArcSwap. Nearly all of this class is pre-mainnet: announced or testnet-only, marketing-forward, and unevenly documented. Some — AstraPump and ARCLaunch in particular — spans launchpad and DEX functions that Built on Arc does not rank.

Class B — web2 and fintech. Banks, payment service providers, remittance networks, custodians, and enterprise infrastructure that already run real businesses off-chain and are extending onto Arc, usually through a named integration rather than a fully public product. This class includes Circle's eleven founding validators (see the dedicated guide below), the named partners from Circle's 5 August 2026 mainnet-launch release, and the Circle Developer Grants cohort — smaller fintechs, concentrated in African corridor payments, building real production volume that mostly predates Arc.

Class B rarely reads as "crypto" at all. A regional payments company integrating USDC settlement through Arc looks, on its own site, like an ordinary fintech — the Arc connection often surfaces only in a press release or a partner-directory listing. That's one reason this directory insists on sourcing every entry rather than inferring participation from logos on a slide.

Four status values — and why we insist on them

Every entry carries exactly one of four statuses, and we do not use softer language than this:

• Live on Arc — the product is deployed and operating on Arc mainnet, with a verifiable transaction, contract, or announcement dated on or after 16 September 2026. As of 2 September 2026, no entry in this directory carries this status, because mainnet has not opened yet.
• Testnet — the project has a verifiable deployment on Arc's public testnet (chain ID 5042002) but no confirmed mainnet presence.
• Announced — a project, partnership, or integration has been named in an official release, a project's own communications, or credible reporting, but no product, contract, or testnet deployment has been independently verified.
• Inactive — an entry that was previously Live or Testnet but has shown no activity for 90 days, or whose Arc support has been withdrawn.

We deliberately avoid "confirmed," "verified," and "live" as loose synonyms. "Confirmed" means we found the primary source ourselves. "Live" means it is running on the network it claims to run on, right now. "Verified" is never used as a stand-in for evidence. A project can be confirmed and still only Announced in status — Circle confirming a partnership is not the same as that partnership shipping a product.

The five-field model

Every entry carries five things: a Builds on Arc sentence (one editor-written line on what the project does with the chain and for whom), a role (Deploys, Issues, Integrates, or Serves — plus the Founding validator mark where it applies), a category and subcategory, a status with dated evidence, and a tier (Editor's Index or Listing). Every entry also carries a verification block: an official source, the claimed listing itself, and whether the product is live to customers.

On-chain checks — contract verification and liquidity-lock status — are conditional, not universal. They appear only on Deploys or Issues project pages, and only for checks that actually apply. A check that cannot apply — liquidity-lock status for a bank's settlement pilot, say — is never shown as "not met"; it's omitted or marked "Not applicable." Built on Arc does not use words like "safe," "legit," or "rug-proof" anywhere on this site — the model describes status and evidence, not safety. For the full methodology on reading an entry and verifying it yourself, see How to read an Arc project entry.

The category map

Built on Arc organizes entries into ten categories:

• Launchpads, NFT & Meme — token-issuance, IDO platforms, NFT collections, and meme-token activity building for Arc.
• Exchanges & Trading — decentralized and centralized exchanges, aggregators, and market makers. Lending has moved to DeFi & Credit.
• Wallets & Custody — self-custody wallets and wallet-as-a-service providers.
• Payments & Payouts — PSPs, remittance networks, merchant acceptance, payroll, and business accounts. Banks have moved to Banks & Enterprises, issuers to Stablecoins & Tokenized Assets.
• Developer Infrastructure — RPCs, oracles, indexing, account abstraction, and token tooling. Compliance vendors have moved to Compliance & Analytics, custodians to Wallets & Custody.
• Bridges & Onramps — cross-chain and fiat-to-Arc rails, unchanged from before.
• Banks & Enterprises — banks, asset managers, card networks, and corporates, including the founding validator cohort.
• Stablecoins & Tokenized Assets — stablecoin issuers, tokenized funds, and tokenized securities.
• DeFi & Credit — lending, private credit, yield, and structured products — status and links only; earn content lives at ArcYield.
• Compliance & Analytics — KYC/AML, transaction monitoring, and blockchain intelligence.

For how these ten map against Circle's own partner taxonomy — organized differently, with real gaps — see Arc's ecosystem, mapped by category.

Payments & Payouts is worth pulling out specifically, because it is where the directory's Class B entries concentrate and where the most real production activity currently sits, even pre-mainnet — note that banks and stablecoin issuers no longer populate this table under v2:

Developer Infrastructure carries the oracle and RPC providers builders actually depend on day to day — note that custodians and compliance vendors no longer populate this table under v2:

Where to go for launchpads, yield and news

Built on Arc owns status and verification — what's shipped, what's testnet, what's a press release. It does not own every adjacent intent, and we send readers elsewhere on purpose:

• For launchpad rankings, wallet setup, bridging to Arc, and buying an Arc-based token, see Meme Central.
• For yield, APY, or lending on Arc — including Aave, Morpho, Uniswap, and Aerodrome once live — see ArcYield. Built on Arc does not write earn-angle content.
• For breaking Arc news and mainnet-day coverage, see Radian.

What's missing from Circle's own list

Circle maintains its own partner wall at arc.io/ecosystem — a closed, business-development-gated directory of roughly 100 institutional names sorted under filter tags for issuers, infrastructure, tools, and enterprises. It has no public submission form beyond an email-updates signup, and its taxonomy has no bucket at all for launchpads, NFT platforms, meme tooling, gaming, or consumer applications. That gap is a structural reason an independent directory exists; see How projects get listed by Circle.

How we keep this page current

This page updates as Arc's status changes — most consequentially at 16 September 2026, when the first entries become eligible for "Live on Arc" status. Between now and then, expect churn in the "Announced" column as testnet deployments are observed and, in a smaller number of cases, as announced partnerships quietly fail to materialize. We date-stamp every claim and revise rather than delete when a status changes, so the history of a project's status is part of its record.

Sources: - Circle Announces Founding Validator Cohort and Major Integrations for Arc - Circle Launches Arc Public Testnet - Arc ecosystem page