BlackRock Bets on Circle’s Arc: $222M Raised in Major Token Presale

A16z led the investment round, while other big names that were involved include Apollo Funds and ICE.

The company behind the second-largest stablecoin by market cap has successfully raised $222 million in the presale of a token tied to its new blockchain called Arc.

The fully diluted valuation has risen to $3 billion, while company CEO Jeremy Allaire hinted that the firm will also enter into the “apps business.”

The Q1 results press release from Circle informed that the USDC in circulation grew 28% during the first quarter of the year and reached $77 billion. More impressively, the USDC on-chain transaction volume jumped by over 260% to $21.5 trillion. The total revenue and reserve income in Q1 of $694 million showed an increase of 20%.

The $222 million presale raise at a $3 billion fully diluted network valuation saw participation by many industry and legacy giants, including ARK Invest, BlackRock, Bullish, Intercontinental Exchange, SBI Ground, and Standard Chartered Ventures.

The white paper for the upcoming asset, ARC Token, went live today and reportedly outlines how “a native coordination asset could support governance, security, and network operations” on the Arc blockchain.

“We’re entering the operating system business, and we’re doing it by building this multi-stakeholder distributed model with a token, with a distributed network … and we’re also getting into the apps business,” CEO Allaire told CNBC.

The chief exec added that the launch of the company’s Agent Stack will build trusted infrastructure for “AI-native economic activity and a more programmable internet financial system.”

Circle’s stock price (CRCL) is up by over 2% in pre-market activity. Recall that the shares rocketed by 20% last week after two US senators announced a bipartisan compromise of the most contentious issues regarding the highly anticipated stablecoin deal.

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