Arc Mainnet Countdown: Meme Projects Rush for Launch Entries, Institutional DeFi Poised to Move

Original article by: ChandlerZ, Foresight News

Within two months of its launch, Robinhood Chain pushed its single-day DEX trading volume to $989 million, also raising market expectations for the next institutional public chain.

On September 16, Circle's open blockchain network Arc, built for global financial markets, will go live on the public mainnet. It is a Layer 1 blockchain primarily focused on stablecoin finance, initially using USDC to pay for Gas. Transactions can reach final confirmation within one second, and the network is maintained by a permissioned set of validators.

Where will the first wave of traffic flow? Meme projects have already opened their markets early, with launchpads competing for token issuance entry points. Everything is ready, awaiting only the opportune moment.

The 11 founding validators announced by Circle on August 5 include BlackRock, DTCC, Galaxy, Global Payments, ICE, Mastercard, MoneyGram, SBI Group, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo Corporation, and Visa. Arc is currently in the private mainnet phase, with over 100 institutional and ecosystem teams involved in building on it.

BlackRock is expected to deploy its U.S. dollar institutional digital liquidity fund BUIDL to Arc, allowing institutional investors to complete fund subscription, redemption, and capital deployment within a native USDC environment. Circle and DTCC plan to begin tokenization of assets held in custody by DTC (Depository Trust Company) starting in the second half of 2027, aiming to enable market participants to settle tokenized assets in stablecoins through third-party applications on Arc. BNY and Standard Chartered are also exploring integration solutions for digital asset custody, FX, and repo infrastructure.

In the first 90 days after Arc's public testnet launch, it processed over 150 million transactions, with approximately 1.5 million wallets initiating transactions. Since the private mainnet launched in May, the network with chain ID 5042 has seen community RPCs, explorers, trading platforms, and tokens begin to emerge.

These tokens have already generated quoted prices and liquidity, but the network is still defined by Circle as a private mainnet. Public network access will open on September 16, with official cross-chain tool mainnet parameters still pending release.

Fomo and edgeX Commit to Day-One Integration, Aave V4 Still Awaits Governance Progress

Fomo co-founder Se Yong Park stated on August 30 that Fomo will provide trading support on the first day of Arc's launch. Fomo is an application that combines token discovery, social feeds, and cross-chain trading within a single account. The project disclosed in April that its mobile registrations had reached 500,000. Fomo has not yet announced the initial tokens, trading routes, or liquidity sources it will support on Arc.

Fomo currently supports Solana, Robinhood Chain, BNB Chain, Base, Ethereum, and Monad, allowing users to view other accounts' trades, track P&L, and purchase tokens cross-chain within the app. After integrating Arc, this frontend could directly bring existing users to Arc asset pages, but whether bridge-less trading can be achieved on day one still depends on the routing and funding entry points Fomo subsequently announces.

edgeX announced on September 3 that it would be a day-one partner of Arc, planning to first launch a 24-hour trading USD/JPY FX perpetual contract, while offering over 150 perpetual markets covering U.S. equities, commodities, and crypto assets. Margin, settlement, and fees will all use native USDC. Circle Ventures has invested in edgeX, and the two parties have previously advanced native USDC and CCTP integration on EDGE Chain.

Circle expects Aave, Aerodrome, FalconX, Galaxy, GSR, Keyrock, Morpho, Nonco, Uniswap, and XFX among other DeFi protocols and capital service providers to integrate on the first day of the public mainnet. Rain, Thunes, and Wirex will provide stablecoin payment services, while Binance Wallet, Chainlink, Fireblocks, Kraken, Ledger, MetaMask, Uniswap Labs, and Upbit will provide wallet, trading, and infrastructure support. Aave Labs submitted a governance proposal in June to deploy Aave V4 on Arc, planning to open USDC, EURC, WETH, and cirBTC markets around the mainnet launch. This deployment still requires completion of Aave's governance process.

According to this list, Uniswap and Aerodrome will provide spot exchange and liquidity pools, Aave and Morpho will handle collateralized lending, and institutions like FalconX, GSR, Keyrock, and Nonco will be responsible for market making and capital allocation. Arc's initial Gas, major trading pairs, and lending assets all revolve around USDC. Whether day-one capital simultaneously enters Meme pools, stablecoin pools, and lending markets will directly impact slippage and borrowable scale across various markets.

Top Memes Begin to Stratify, Tolly, Warp, and Arcpad Compete for Token Issuance Entry Points

On September 1, the Chinese community account ARC China Research Station published a rundown of trending Meme tokens on Arc, with Architects, FatCatBatRatWifHat, COOL, and WARP all making its top five. Arcodex data shows that the market caps of Architects, COOL, and FatCatBatRatWifHat are approximately $2.79 million, $2.31 million, and $1.16 million respectively, with corresponding liquidity of approximately $90,800, $105,300, and $60,500, and 24-hour trader counts of 105, 193, and 73 respectively.

WARP and BEANCAT have market caps of approximately $890,900 and $864,500 respectively, with in-pool liquidity both below $46,000.

Additionally, Arc uses USDC to serve as both Gas and the denominated asset for trading. Users do not need to prepare another network token in advance when creating, buying, or selling tokens. Launchpads therefore generally integrate USDC directly into bonding curves or liquidity pools, but projects offer different approaches to price formation, LP ownership, and fee distribution.

Tolly is already running a launchpad and DEX on chain ID 5042. New projects skip the bonding curve entirely, with the full token supply going directly into a permanently locked USDC liquidity pool. A 1% fee is charged on each transaction. Of the USDC fees from buy transactions, 64% goes to the creator, 12% enters a holder rewards pool, 10% goes to the protocol, and the remainder is used to buy back and burn TOLLY as well as the corresponding project tokens. Project tokens from sell-side fees are all burned.

Warp uses a bonding curve, with tokens migrating to WarpDex and LP burned once market cap reaches $69,000. Its cross-chain purchase module plans to burn USDC on Ethereum, Base, and Arbitrum via Circle CCTP, automatically executing purchases after minting on Arc. The Arc-side contracts have already been deployed, while source-chain contracts had still not gone live as of September 3.

Arcpad offers another approach on the public testnet, with tokens entering Uniswap V3 immediately after creation, with no waiting for graduation or migration. The platform charges a 1% trading fee, split equally between protocol and creator by default, and creators can also distribute a portion of their revenue to holders. Arcpad has disclosed that its contracts have not undergone professional audits. Tolly, Warp, and Arcpad are currently all independent projects, and Circle has not endorsed their products or tokens.

RadarDEX currently serves as the market data and issuance infrastructure for the ecosystem, with its data adopted by frontends such as Arcodex. Its built-in launcher creates and locks liquidity based on Uniswap V3. Sharc, meanwhile, has chosen a bonding curve with LP-burning after graduation, and has clearly stated that it has not yet issued a platform token. With multiple launchpads appearing simultaneously, tokens sharing the same name and ticker may also be deployed repeatedly, making contract addresses the only reliable identifiers for distinguishing assets.

Interestingly, Circle also plans to launch a suite of accompanying products on September 16, including a composable application framework for on-chain workflows, AI-driven application and smart contract building tools, issuance and management capabilities for tokenized real-world assets, as well as interactive interfaces for developers, users, and AI agents.

After the public mainnet opens on September 16, official cross-chain capital inflows, DEX liquidity, lending deposits, and active addresses will begin to form verifiable mainnet data. The day-one products promised by Fomo and edgeX will also face real trading tests on the same day.