Circle to Scale Arc and Payments for Institutional Stablecoins

Circle Internet Group plans to prioritize building “durable” infrastructure through 2026 to increase corporate and institutional use of stablecoins, according to a Thursday blog post by Chief Product and Technology Officer Nikhil Chandhok.

Chandhok said the company intends to advance Arc, its layer-1 blockchain designed for institutional and large-scale applications, from testnet to production. Circle also plans to extend the utility and reach of its tokens — USDC (USDC), EURC, USYC — and partner-launched stablecoins by deploying to additional networks. “That means deepening native support on high-impact networks, tightening integration with Arc, and making it easier for institutional users to hold, move, and program with these assets as part of their everyday operations,” Chandhok said.

Stablecoins were a key theme in 2025 as the United States enacted laws to regulate the asset class, and financial institutions and banks evaluated launching their own stablecoins.

Broader institutional adoption strategy

Circle said it will scale its applications, including its payments network, to enable institutional users to adopt stablecoin-based payments without having to build and maintain the underlying infrastructure. The firm will continue investing to make USDC work seamlessly across chains, improve user experience by reducing “chain complexities,” and provide more robust developer tools, Chandhok added.

“In addition, we will continue to expand our partner and developer ecosystem to build utility and extend global scale and reach to bring the benefits of stablecoin and internet-scale finance to more markets and use cases,” he said.

USDC is the second-largest by market value

USDC holds the second-largest share among U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins, with over $70 billion in market capitalization, according to DeFi data aggregator DefiLlama. USDt (USDT) remains the largest at over $186 billion, out of a total stablecoin market cap of $306 billion. The sector first surpassed $300 billion in October last year, driven primarily by USDt, USDC, and Ethena Labs’ yield-bearing stablecoin, USDe.

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