Arc Mainnet is approaching. StableFX brings onchain FX infrastructure to Arc for institutions, banks, fintechs, and enterprises that need settlement without waiting on market cutoffs or banking hours. Built for 24/7 settlement with trusted stablecoins vetted through the Circle Partner Stablecoins program and payment-versus-payment settlement that helps reduce principal risk. Takers can access multiple vetted counterparties through a single onboarding flow, without managing fragmented bilateral connections. The goal is simple: FX infrastructure that works 24/7, just like today’s businesses. Start exploring:

Everyone has a different reason to subscribe to Pulsar Pro. No StableFX fees, skipping the waitlist as a Pro member, earning more cashback, or getting priority customer support are just some of the perks included with the Pro plan. What would be your main reason to go Pro? 👇🏻

Welcome to Arc 101, Episode 11. StableFX brings currency conversion onchain through firm RFQ pricing, atomic Payment-versus-Payment settlement, and Maker Netting. This episode shows how StableFX turns FX into a programmable utility on Arc.

Arc Mainnet is live, and today is the starting point. Builders can use Arc Studio, Portal, App Kits, StableFX, Agent Stack, and more now, with privacy, payments, agents, and Proof of Stake ahead.

B2B stablecoin payments have hit a $226 billion annualised run rate, up 733% in a year, but the onchain leg was never the expensive part. The real cost sits in FX spreads, local rails and prefunded capital. We ranked the 9 best stablecoin FX platforms for cross-border payments in 2026, from Circle StableFX’s onchain swaps to fiat-and-stablecoin desks like @CodexFX that settle 24/7 without prefunding. Read the full breakdown:

Stablecoin payments are moving further up the financial stack. The last month brought new payment rails, institutional FX infrastructure, bank-issued stablecoins and even confidential stablecoins, with different projects pushing the sector beyond simple onchain transfers. Here’s a round up of the last month across Stablecoin payments and neofinance platforms. — ● @circle • Acquired @tazapay, a cross-border payments infrastructure provider • Launched Arc mainnet, an L1 built specifically around financial markets, payments and agentic commerce • Launched StableFX, a 24/7 institutional FX engine, on Arc mainnet • Launched Gateway Fast Deposit, a feature that reduces USDC cross-chain balance funding latency by up to 40x ● @reapglobal • Launched its Virtual Asset Ledger, allowing users to spend Bitcoin and other digital assets directly through card balances • Partnered with @Visa to bring stablecoin-enabled credit card programs and 24/7 settlement to over 100 markets ● @0xfairblock • CUSD, the first confidential stablecoin went live, built on PYUSDx ● @worldmoney • Launched World Money, a self-custodial financial super app ● @osldotcom • Partnered with Waka to provide stablecoin-to-USD conversion and USD payouts for emerging-markets ● @thekorahq • Launched One Rail, integrating stablecoin payments directly into its cross-border payment infrastructure ● @networkonsocial • Launched the UAE’s first in-store pilot to enable payments using DDSC, an AED-backed stablecoin ● @Daya_HQ • Integrated @SuiNetwork as settlement infrastructure for gasless stablecoin transfers across its payment products ● @wirexapp • Publicly launched @wirex_one, its stablecoin-focused neobank, on @arc ● @VolanteTech • Integrated USDC workflows into its payments platform through a partnership with Circle ● @Fiserv • Launched its Digital Asset Platform ● @marqeta • Partnered with @BVNKFinance to add stablecoin-backed card capabilities to its issuing platform ● @tether • Partnered with @FasanaraCapital to launch StableFund, a $400M private credit vehicle ● @PayPal • Partnered with @M0 and @moonpay to launch PYUSDx, a developer platform that lets businesses create custom stablecoins backed by PYUSD ● @coinbase • Partnered with @Moov to bring stablecoin acceptance, settlement and real-time funding to community banks and credit unions ● @openstandard • Open Standard’s OUSD went live ● @Visa • Visa’s stablecoin settlement volume crossed a $20B annualized run rate, up more than 15x YoY ● @usbank • Executed a live cross-border transaction using USBDC, its dollar-backed stablecoin ● @BVNKFinance • Integrated @StellarOrg into its stablecoin payments platform ● @binance Pay • Became available at PayPay merchants across Japan, allowing eligible visitors to spend crypto directly from their Binance accounts — September’s developments point to a clear shift that stablecoins are becoming infrastructure for financial products, not merely products themselves. If the last phase was about putting dollars onchain, this phase is about making those dollars useful everywhere.

Just wrapped an awesome live on the Arc ecosystem with our Brazillian Professor @BrazillianCare ! 🔥 Had the pleasure of hosting @samconnerone (Director of Community & Ecosystem at Circle/Arc) who dropped valuable insights on building on @Arc, the stablecoin stack, hackathon opportunities, and more. Thanks Sam for joining and sharing your knowledge! Historic photo with the Brazil team during the live 👊 Quick recap: - Arc treating stablecoins as the foundation of the chain (USDC as gas, sub-second finality, CCTP, StableFX) - Programmable Money Bootcamp in full swing - Programmable Money Hackathon open for builders Who caught the live? Drop your thoughts below. Brazil & LatAm builders: this is the moment to join the bootcamp and hackathon. Let’s ship together! #Arc# #BuildOnArc# #Stablecoins# #ArcHouse#

Circle is clearly becoming one of the most misunderstood companies in crypto. Most people still value it as “the USDC issuer.” That is increasingly the wrong mental model. Circle is very far from the company it was 2-3 years ago. Circle is building a four-layer financial operating system. 1. Arc Core (OS) The base infrastructure: sub-second settlement, USDC-denominated gas, an FX engine, privacy, and AI-native infrastructure. 2. Assets & Protocols USDC, EURC, USYC, cirBTC, wETH, and partner-issued stablecoins. These are the assets that power the network. 3. Protocol Services & App Kits The infrastructure and plug-and-play SDKs developers use to build: mint/redeem, wallets, payments, cross-chain transfers, trading, lending, remittances, credit, onboarding, and agentic financial applications. 4. Applications Circle’s own products: Mint, CPN, Arc Portal, StableFX, alongside third-party DeFi protocols and a broader builder ecosystem. The important point is not simply that Circle is launching more products. It is that each layer increases the value of every other layer. More assets create more protocol usage. Better infrastructure attracts more developers. More applications generate more demand for USDC and Arc. That is the flywheel. Circle is not just trying to monetize stablecoin reserves. It is positioning itself to own and monetize multiple layers of the financial internet. That is a very different company from the one most investors think they are valuing.

Stablecoins represent one of the largest market opportunities in the world as the internet transforms the infrastructure for storing and moving money. We deeply believe in this, and it’s why we both founded Circle and why we’ve invested to build the largest regulated stablecoin network in the world over the past decade. USDC remains the most trusted, widely adopted, institutional-ready stablecoin in the world, and we count thousands of institutions as partners in our ecosystem across nearly every major sector. We continue to invest in growing that ecosystem by building on more networks, bringing more interoperability, and integrating it with banks, payments companies, capital markets firms, enterprises and others globally while expanding how partners can become economic stakeholders in the growth and success of the USDC network. We welcome continued innovation and competition in the space and look forward to remaining laser-focused on building the best stablecoin infrastructure possible and driving more customer and partner success. Meanwhile, we continue to expand support for more dollar and non-dollar stablecoins on Arc, CCTP, StableFX, Circle Wallets and CPN and want to encourage a flourishing market for a stablecoin-native internet financial system.

We’ve had lots of questions from our investor community looking for thoughts on OUSD, and so I thought I’d share my direct views here for anyone. Stablecoin networks are platform and network effect businesses that are established over a long period of time, tend towards winner-take-most market structures, and resemble other internet platform utility markets. There are several layers that drive this. First, stablecoin networks effectively act as public protocols and software layers on the internet and their network strength is a matter of the number and range of applications and services that integrate to the network. Every time a developer or service provider integrates to the network, it brings more network effects. This attracts more developers and adds more utility and more network effects. This then drives demand for the digital currency itself, which then reinforces these network effects through liquidity network effects. We have realized this at a massive scale with the USDC network today — thousands upon thousands of services integrate with our network, which in turn provides immense utility not just to each application, but to users as a whole who benefit massively from the reach and interoperability that exists. This drives user and developer preference further. We’ve invested in building that ecosystem over nearly a decade, and now it’s accelerating as mainstream institutions come onto the network, connecting their customers and users. We add to that utility by building software stacks that further expand and strengthen the network — protocols like CCTP and Gateway, which promote interoperability, safety and liquidity around the world. This expands the target surface area for app builders and developers, making it easy for them to tap into the liquidity and network effects that already exist. We are now seeing that stack get pulled into all kinds of chains, permissioned L2s, networks being built by governments, and so much more. The second layer is that of liquidity network effects. This is fundamental. Liquidity begets liquidity. For a stablecoin to achieve scale and utility, it needs to be highly liquid, both on a primary basis (e.g., through all the major financial market centers in the world, with world class direct banking liquidity) and on a secondary basis both by being available and tradeable for retail and institutional clients in every geography and against every fiat instrument in the world. People who want to access and move value need to be able to easily get in and out of that digital currency. Here, we’ve invested nearly a decade in building out that liquidity, and it is now entrenched in exchanges, DeFI venues, and with PSPs, payments firms, regional exchanges, and so many others. Establishing these liquidity network effects also involves building global regulatory infrastructure and ensuring that the stablecoin is available under various regimes around the world. Today, USDC is in the top 3 most liquid digital assets in the world, and it falls off sharply after that. BTC, USDT and USDC have extraordinary liquidity. The closest other dollar stables are like 10x smaller and that liquidity tends to be concentrated in promotional books in a single exchange, whereas USDC liquidity is dispersed widely across dozens and dozens of surfaces. Building this liquidity has been a nearly decade-long task that we continue. A third layer of network strength comes from the deep integration with the policy and regulatory environment — in many cases, years of effort to build licensing (e.g., USDC is the only large global stablecoin currently available in all of Europe or Japan), and more regimes for stablecoins are coming online, with Circle leading the way in ensuring that USDC is officially recognized, registered, licensed and accepted in the most important markets in the world. On the back of this is the work of building global banking, reserve management and treasury and liquidity management that can operate this on a nearly 24/7 basis in markets and banking systems globally. This globalization effort is a massive investment that we have made over the years. All of these investments by Circle and our global ecosystem of thousands of partners have delivered the net result of providing the world’s most trusted and available digital dollar infrastructure—a utility that any user, developer, or business can freely and easily tap into. And we do not intend to slow down. All of this compounds and shows in the numbers. In Q1 2026, according to third-party analysts (Artemis) who track stablecoin adoption, USDC handled nearly $30T in onchain transactions, representing 80% of all dollar stablecoin transactions on blockchains. USDT handled the remaining 20% of transactions. All of the combined remaining dollar stablecoins handled a total of 0% of transactions (i.e., < 0.5%). While other stablecoins may have some circulation, most of that is through promotions and incentives, the actual usage is extremely limited—because of the extremely limited liquidity and network utility that exists for these coins. But my thoughts on the competitive landscape are not just about the strength of our network—there are also considerations around any new initiative. Several perspectives and positioning have been shared about how something like OUSD improves on something like USDC. 1) Free mint and burn. The argument suggests that existing stablecoins charge burn fees, and payments firms should not need to pay these (despite the fact that the entire payment industry is built on small bps fees on various ingress and egress points on their networks). There are structural market realities built around the fact that some stablecoins impose very large redemption fees and have limited redemption facilities – the impact of this is that stablecoins with strong redemption facilities, good liquidity and no fees become the offramp for their competitor stablecoins. It may seem easy to say one will offer unlimited and free redeems, however market reality likely forces other behavior. This can be addressed – and is addressed by Circle – through contractual mechanisms vs. a blanket fee exemption. 2) Everybody wins and shares. While this sounds good in principle, the reality of the market and market opportunity is quite different. Today, Circle shares the majority of its income with its distribution partners, and we continue to lean hard into expanding those partnerships with leading companies across every sector of the market. However, we also retain significant income that allows us to invest in the massive market infrastructure that makes this such a powerful and valuable utility for the world to build on. Giving away all the income is a recipe for starving an infrastructure, systematically underinvesting and ensuring that your platform will remain limited in scope. Furthermore, Circle believes that the future stablecoin market is likely several orders of magnitude larger than it is today. We’re actively bringing partners into the USDC ecosystem through a diverse and growing set of partnership models that span our work with exchanges, custodians, payments firms, asset issuers and more. We are excited to continue to build with a “big tent mentality” where the entire ecosystem can grow value together. 3) A consortium where everybody has a voice. Perhaps I have a cynical view, but the track record of consortium products achieving scale, P/M Fit or even basic product agility is absolutely dismal, and while there are examples of financial consortia that operate utilities, they are predictably slow moving. Large groups of large companies coordinate poorly, have misaligned incentives, slow things down and rarely create the space for real durable innovation and competitiveness. They also typically, out of their own self-interest, starve the consortium itself on an operating basis. We actually tried this in the early days of USDC, and even with a very small group, ran into endless challenges and complexity. Smaller, tighter strategic collaborations and commercial partnership arrangements with product and platform builders that can drive forward independently will almost always outcompete large consortiums. But oftentimes when these get formed, everyone feels like they should put their logo on the list, kiss the ring, and make noise about openness. But typically those same firms will turn to their operating units and make the best decisions for their customers, which often means partnering with the market leader and building durable win-win partnerships. There’s also been a bunch of commentary on Circle's partnership with Coinbase and what this all means. Our stablecoin partnership with Coinbase remains as strong as ever, and I think we both see that enormous opportunity ahead to expand the USDC network. A final comment: Circle remains committed to supporting a wide range of different products and infrastructures, even when we might compete with different aspects of those partners’ products in other areas of our business. With OUSD, we work closely with many of the founding members, and we expect that those same members will remain large USDC partners and customers. At the same time, as Circle has diversified our product and platform stack, expanding across Arc, CCTP, CPN, StableFX, Agent Stack and many other areas, we continue to expand the partnerships and collaboration with many other stablecoin issuers — dozens of them — to help them launch on Arc, leverage our interoperability infrastructure, get supported in our Wallets and become settlement and FX options on CPN and StableFX. We are huge believers in growth in the stablecoin ecosystem and welcome OUSD as a new member of the community!