Canonical: https://builtonarc.app/guides/which-arc # Which Arc? Circle's Arc blockchain vs the ARC token, Aave Arc, Arc Raiders and Azure Arc Updated 2026-09-16. At least six unrelated things are called Arc. This is which is which — Circle's Arc blockchain, the ARC token, Aave Arc, Arc Raiders, Azure Arc and the browser. > At least six unrelated things are called Arc, and search engines do not reliably tell them apart. This site covers exactly one: Circle's Arc, a stablecoin-native Layer-1 blockchain with mainnet live since 16 September 2026, testnet chain ID 5042002 and mainnet chain ID 5042 per docs.arc.io, on which fees are paid in USDC. If you came looking for a video game, a Microsoft product, a browser, a church network, a 2022 lending pool or a token ticker, this page says where to go. ## Circle's Arc — the chain this site covers Arc is a Layer-1 blockchain built by Circle, the company that issues the USDC and EURC stablecoins. Its defining design choice is that transaction fees are denominated in USDC rather than in a separate volatile asset, so a business paying in dollars does not have to hold a second token to move the first one. The confirmed operating facts, as of 6 September 2026: a public testnet has run since 28 October 2025; execution is EVM-compatible; consensus is Malachite, a Tendermint-family BFT engine, with sub-second finality; and the validator set is permissioned rather than open, anchored by eleven institutions Circle named on 5 August 2026, among them BlackRock, DTCC, Mastercard and Visa. Circle published the mainnet RPC (https://rpc.mainnet.arc.io) and explorer (https://explorer.arc.io) at docs.arc.io on 16 September 2026. Circle Internet Group, a US-listed company, builds and operates the chain. Built on Arc is an independent directory of projects on it and is not Circle; it tracks [what is live on Arc mainnet](/live) with a dated source attached to every status. ## The ARC token, and which one you mean There are two separate things people mean by "ARC token", and neither of them is the chain. The first is Circle's own ARC token, described in a published whitepaper as the network's coordination asset, covering governance of fee parameters, a future move toward staking, and fee routing. What the document says, and what it disclaims, is set out in [the ARC token whitepaper, summarised](/guides/arc-token-whitepaper-explained). The chain functions without it: fees are paid in USDC. The second is any of several unrelated tokens that have used the ARC ticker on crypto exchanges, some predating Circle's chain by years. They have no connection to Circle, to Arc or to this directory, and are not covered here. ## Aave Arc is not Aave on Arc This is the collision that causes the most confusion. The two are four years and one chain apart. **Aave Arc** was a permissioned lending market launched by Aave in January 2022. Only whitelisted, identity-verified participants could supply or borrow in it, with a designated whitelister — Fireblocks was the first — performing the checks. It ran separately from Aave's public pools and had nothing to do with Circle or with any blockchain called Arc. **Aave on Arc** is a 2026 proposal to deploy Aave on Circle's Arc blockchain. Aave Labs published a temperature check in June 2026, escalated it to an ARFC on 19 June and raised it to a Snapshot vote on 2 September, proposing an Aave V4 market. As of 6 September 2026 that is a governance proposal, not a live deployment: no executed proposal, no pool address and no supplied balances on a chain that had not launched. The current status, with its source, is on this site's [Aave](/project/aave) entry. ## Arc Raiders, Azure Arc, ARC churches and the Arc browser **Arc Raiders** is a multiplayer extraction shooter from Embark Studios, and accounts for a large share of the search volume on the bare word "arc" and on "arc network". **Azure Arc** is Microsoft's hybrid and multicloud management service, extending Azure management to servers and Kubernetes clusters running elsewhere. Enterprise searches for "arc" often mean this. **ARC** in a church context is the Association of Related Churches, a US church-planting network, and a meaningful share of US "arc" queries. **Arc** is also a desktop web browser from The Browser Company; queries about downloading or installing Arc usually mean that. None of these are covered here and none are connected to Circle. ## Is Arc an Indian stablecoin? No. The question appears in Google's own People Also Ask results for "arc blockchain", and the answer is straightforward: Arc is a blockchain built by Circle, a US company, and its fee and settlement asset is USDC, a US-dollar stablecoin. Circle also issues EURC, a euro stablecoin. Neither Circle nor Arc issues a rupee-denominated stablecoin, and Arc is not an Indian project. The likeliest explanation is collision rather than any single project: "arc" is a short string attached to several unrelated tickers and companies, and People Also Ask boxes are assembled from what users type, not from what is true. Sources: - [Circle: Arc, a blockchain for stablecoin finance](https://www.circle.com/arc) - [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) - [Circle: Connect to Arc (mainnet and testnet chain IDs)](https://docs.arc.io/arc/references/connect-to-arc) - [Aave governance forum: Aave V4 on Arc](https://governance.aave.com/) - [Aave Arc documentation (2022 permissioned market)](https://docs.aave.com/) *Built on Arc is an independent directory. Arc is a Circle product; we are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by Circle.* ## Questions **Which Arc does this site cover?** Built on Arc covers Circle's Arc, the stablecoin-native Layer-1 blockchain (mainnet chain ID 5042; testnet 5042002) that launched mainnet on 16 September 2026. It does not cover the ARC token, Aave Arc (a 2022 permissioned lending pool), Arc Raiders, Azure Arc or the Arc web browser. **Who owns Arc blockchain?** Circle Internet Group builds and operates it. The validator set is permissioned and anchored by eleven institutions named on 5 August 2026, but Circle operates the network. Built on Arc is an independent directory covering the chain and is not affiliated with Circle. **Is Circle's Arc the same as Aave Arc?** No. Aave Arc was a permissioned Aave lending market launched in January 2022 with whitelisted participants. Circle's Arc is a blockchain that reached mainnet in September 2026. The shared word is coincidence. **Do I need the ARC token to use Arc?** No. Transaction fees on Arc are paid in USDC. Circle has published a whitepaper describing an ARC token for governance and a future staking model; the chain's fee mechanism does not depend on holding it. **Is Arc built on Ethereum?** No. Arc is a Layer-1 with its own consensus — Malachite, a Tendermint-family BFT engine — not a Layer-2 rollup settling to Ethereum. It is EVM-compatible, so Ethereum tooling works on it, but that is compatibility, not dependency.