Circle

Circle's Arc Mainnet is set to launch on September 16, with an impressive cohort of founding validators including BlackRock, DTCC, Galaxy, Global Payments, ICE, Mastercard, MoneyGram, SBI Group, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo Corporation, and Visa. The network has already processed over half a billion testnet transactions, attracted nearly 3 million wallets, and onboarded 100+ partners on its private mainnet. The initial validator cohort is expected to help operate the network alongside Circle. The announcement came as part of Circle's Q2 results, which also noted the receipt of a federal trust bank charter.

OSL, a Hong Kong-licensed digital asset platform, is bringing compliant USDC liquidity to Asia by integrating USDC into StableHub. Eligible clients gain access to USDC for exchange, custody, and settlement. Within approximately four months of launch, StableHub surpassed $100 million in USDC deposits.

Circle Mint now supports direct local currency on/offramps in 8 currencies, helping eligible businesses move between local banking rails and USDC. Alongside existing USD and EUR support, newly added currencies include BRL (Brazilian Real), GBP (British Pound), HKD (Hong Kong Dollar), MXN (Mexican Peso), CNH (Offshore Chinese Yuan), and one additional currency, significantly expanding global access.

cirBTC, Circle's wrapped Bitcoin product, is now live on Ethereum for all Circle Mint LLC customers. The underlying BTC is custodied by Circle National Trust, a federally chartered national trust bank and qualified custodian supervised by the OCC. Circle is building toward a unified workflow for minting and managing tokenized assets alongside USDC.

Standard Chartered clients in Dubai's DIFC can now mint and redeem USDC through their existing banking relationships with the bank. Geoff Kendrick, Global Head of Digital Assets Research at Standard Chartered, highlighted how eligible clients can access the regulated dollar stablecoin through a bank they already know and trust, bridging traditional finance and onchain dollars.

Goldsky has integrated with Circle Agent Stack to let AI agents query curated blockchain data across 40+ EVM networks and pay per request via nanopayments starting at $0.000005 in USDC. No accounts, API keys, or subscriptions are required, making it a frictionless data layer for autonomous onchain agents.

USDCx, a native USDC-backed stablecoin issued by Miden via Circle's xReserve, is coming soon on the Miden network. Unlike standard USDC, USDCx on Miden will be private by default — users can hold and transact without publishing balances, counterparties, or payment history onchain. This marks a significant expansion of USDC into privacy-preserving blockchain environments.

Native USDC and CCTP (Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol) are now live on X Layer, the Ethereum L2 from OKX. PSPs, fintechs, AI agents, and DeFi protocols on X Layer can now access USDC for use cases including collateral, trading, and payments. The integration extends USDC's reach across another major exchange-backed blockchain.

Circle Agent Stack now offers a Discovery API that gives builders programmatic access to a curated discovery layer for agentic services. Developers can query the full Agent Marketplace catalog through a single public endpoint with no API key, authentication, or Circle account required. The feature lowers the barrier for discovering and integrating agent-based services into applications.

Circle Gateway now supports ERC-1271, enabling smart contracts, smart wallets, and other applications to access unified USDC balances while preserving their existing authorization logic. Key benefits include:

• No delegate accounts required
• Existing policy controls preserved
• Expanded crosschain compatibility

The upgrade makes it easier for onchain applications to integrate USDC without modifying their security model.