Circle 增加 30 亿美元的 Wall Street Arc 代币，冒着与 Coinbase 展开令人不安的竞争的风险

Circle's $222 million ARC token presale has given Wall Street a new way to value the USDC issuer, while raising a harder question for one of crypto’s most profitable alliances. On May 11, Circle said investors led by a16z Crypto backed the presale of ARC, the native token for Arc, its planned public blockchain for institutional finance. The sale valued the network at $3 billion on a fully diluted basis and came alongside first-quarter results that showed $694 million in total revenue and reserve income, up 20% from a year earlier. At the same time, USDC in circulation rose 28% to $77 billion, while on-chain transaction volume reached $21.5 trillion, up 263% year over year. Circle's Q1 Earnings Report (Source: Circle) Those figures reinforced Circle’s position as one of the main issuers in the global stablecoin market, where tokenized dollars have become core infrastructure for trading, payments, and settlement. However, the more important development was Circle’s attempt to move beyond issuance through its new blockchain network, Arc. Arc gives the company a network-level growth story built around payments, tokenized assets, foreign exchange, capital markets, and AI-driven commerce. That push places Circle closer to the terrain already occupied by Coinbase , its longtime USDC partner and the operator of Base, the Layer 2 network that the US-based exchange has positioned as a settlement layer for stablecoins, consumer payments, and agentic transactions. Considering this, Circle’s aggressive expansion could bring a new competition to the crypto landscape: a looming, head-to-head battle with Coinbase. Circle gives investors a wider story Circle’s business has long been tied to the economics of stablecoin reserves. The company issues USDC, holds safe assets backing the token, and earns income on those reserves. That model can be powerful when rates are elevated, but it also raises questions about how durable its earnings will be as interest income declines. Arc is Circl