Circle Is Developing Arc Sectors, With Payment Segment Targeting Over 100,000 TPS

Circle said during its third-quarter earnings call that it is developing Arc Sectors, dedicated channels for different types of financial activity. According to Foresight News, the planned sectors include an institutional channel, a privacy channel with selective confidentiality and disclosure, a payment channel targeting more than 100,000 transactions per second, and an AI agent channel with identity verification and audit trails. Circle expects AI agents to be discoverable, hireable, payable and trusted on Arc by the first quarter of 2027. As of late October, the total value of USDC, cirBTC and EURC on Arc was about $1.5 billion. More than $30 billion in USDC has circulated on Arc since launch, with daily transaction volume at about 500,000. As of October 30, Circle Payments Network’s annualized payment volume exceeded $58 billion, up more than 150% from $23 billion on July 31. A total of 205 financial institutions had joined the network, which Circle expects to generate substantial revenue in 2027. In the third quarter, USDC accounted for 79% of stablecoin on-chain transaction volume, compared with 66% in the same period last year. USDC minting and redemptions totaled a record $208 billion, up 42% year over year.