Arc's first day online: crypto infrastructure projects celebrate en masse—is the next Robinhood Chain here?
- Core Viewpoint: Circle's stablecoin network Arc has officially launched its mainnet, gaining collective support from leading projects like Pump.fun and Phantom on day one. Market enthusiasm far exceeds the muted reception when Robinhood Chain launched, positioning Arc as a strong contender for the "next Robinhood Chain."
- Key Elements:
- Arc's founding validators include traditional financial institutions such as BlackRock, DTCC, Galaxy, and Visa, with partners spanning mainstream DeFi and wallet projects including Aave, Uniswap, Binance Wallet, and MetaMask.
- On Arc's first day, launchpad platform tokens such as ARGUS, TOLLY, and LONG emerged with market caps in the tens of millions of dollars. Their narratives closely mirror the leading on-chain tokens of Robinhood Chain, all centered around the "buyback and burn" concept.
- Four major reasons for the enthusiastic reception: the follow-the-leader effect from Robinhood Chain's stellar precedent; Arc's positioning covering global financial markets and AI Agent economic activity (a higher ceiling); Circle's role as a stablecoin issuer being seen as "one of our own"; and its ability to bring incremental liquidity to the ecosystem and create synergies.
- Robinhood Chain previously reversed its fortunes from obscurity to become a market focal point, thanks to its compliant brokerage background and crypto-stock meme gameplay. Arc is expected to replicate its growth miracle.
- The head-to-head competition between Arc and Robinhood Chain has only just begun, and whether Arc can develop innovative gameplay remains to be seen.
Original | Odaily (@OdailyChina)
Author | Wenser (@wenser 2010)
Circle's blockchain network Arc officially launched today, and on its first day, numerous launchpad platform tokens such as ARGUS, TOLLY, and LONG emerged with market caps in the tens of millions of dollars, giving people a taste of the heat and potential of "the next Robinhood Chain." Matching the bustling activity of the trading market, numerous crypto infrastructure and application projects have expressed their support for the Arc chain, including established players like Pump.fun and Phantom wallet. The co-founder of the recently popular trading app fomo had even proudly announced before Arc's launch that it would be among the first to provide support. Such a lively scene stands in stark contrast to the silence in the crypto community when Robinhood Chain launched two months ago. The reasons behind this are far more complex than one might imagine.
Arc Mainnet Officially Launches: Crypto Infrastructure Projects Celebrate on Day One
As early as August 5, the Arc chain officially announced that the mainnet would launch on September 16. At that time, it also listed the validator nodes behind it and a roster of partners, including:
Founding validator teams include BlackRock, DTCC Group, Galaxy Group, SBI, Visa, and others;
DeFi and liquidity partners include Aave, GSR, Morpho, Uniswap, and others;
Payment partners include Raincards, Thunes Payments, Wirex App, and others;
Exchange and wallet partners include Binance Wallet, Chainlink, Kraken, MetaMask, Uniswap, and others.
Recently, the fomo co-founder's earlier promise to provide trading support on Arc's launch day was fulfilled as scheduled, and Arc officially also made an official announcement about this; Solana ecosystem veteran launchpad Pump.fun also posted this morning stating that the Arc chain would be supported by the Pump.fun app on its first day of launch, allowing users to seamlessly trade any Arc chain token with USDC, earn Callout rewards, and enjoy near-zero transaction fees. Phantom wallet, TokenPocket wallet, and Bitget Wallet followed suit.
The lively scene of numerous crypto projects congratulating Arc on its launch and providing corresponding trading support stands in sharp contrast to the cold reception when Robinhood Chain launched earlier. The reasons behind this involve multiple factors including the bandwagon effect, its own positioning, its parent company, and its ecological niche in the crypto market.
4 Major Reasons Behind Arc's Warm Reception: The Robinhood Chain Effect, Network Positioning, Circle's Background, and Synergy
The attention and support Arc has received absolutely cannot be discussed without mentioning Robinhood Chain paving the way.
Two months ago, when Robinhood Chain launched, the crypto market's attitude was rather lukewarm. At the time, in many people's eyes, Robinhood Chain—branded as "yet another Ethereum L2 network"—was merely another entry on the "list of failed Ethereum L2 networks." After all, aside from Base, which has some backing from Coinbase, networks like Arbitrum, Optimism, and even Monad have all fallen into silence as Ethereum's price fluctuated downward and market sentiment cooled. Token prices and ecosystem activity have dropped to freezing points in recent years, and no one holds any expectations for Ethereum L2 networks anymore.
But subsequently, Robinhood Chain quickly became a market focus by leveraging its backing from Robinhood—a compliant brokerage platform—stock token trading, and the subsequently spawned stock-meme coin gameplay, with on-chain ecosystem activity, trading volume, and user numbers continuing to rise.
Arc, backed by stablecoin issuer Circle, is naturally expected to become "the next Robinhood Chain" due to its previous fundraising and strong support from traditional financial institutions. Crypto insiders hope Arc can replicate the latter's growth miracle and wealth-creation frenzy.
In terms of network positioning, unlike Robinhood Chain's主打 "RWA assets + Meme coin network" concept, Arc officially states that its goal focuses on "global financial markets, real-time fund flows, and AI Agent-driven economic activity." In other words, Arc's positioning remains rooted in stablecoin networks, payment networks, financial market capital flows, and AI Agent economic activity, making its positioning and use cases broader than Robinhood Chain's, with a relatively higher ceiling.
Furthermore, from the perspective of project background, for many infrastructure projects in the crypto market, aside from a few vested interest groups like Arbitrum and Uniswap, Robinhood and Robinhood Chain are more like "barbarians at the gate." The markets, users, trading volume, and fee revenue they compete for mainly come from existing competition; whereas Circle, as a stablecoin issuer, plays a role closer to "one of our own." Its issuance of stablecoins is essentially supplying blood to the crypto market and expanding the ecosystem's sphere of influence, so it's only natural that it receives support from many infrastructure projects.
Finally, in terms of synergy. As a stablecoin circulation network, Arc—beyond the imagination it offers in Meme coins and stock tokenization trading—can also continuously bring more liquidity and more users to various projects and infrastructure-layer projects. It is essentially creating an incremental market to some degree, and can form synergistic effects with numerous wallets, exchanges, and trading platforms.
At a time when the crypto market has finally ushered in an incremental moment, crypto-native projects certainly want to seize the opportunity and catch the new "train of the era" that is Circle and Arc. Therefore, their speed of response and supportive attitude speak for themselves.
Currently, the Meme coin narrative that successfully broke through on Arc's first day is indeed highly consistent with the leading tokens on Robinhood Chain—both are launchpad platform tokens, and both emphasize a "buyback and burn" concept. As for whether they can subsequently reach new highs and develop innovative gameplay, let us maintain high expectations.
The rivalry between Robinhood Chain and Arc has only just begun.
