Why Circle Decided to Build Arc

In a conversation with Rollup, Circle’s Head of Product, Nikhil Chandhok, explained the motivation behind building Arc, Circle’s new blockchain.

“Circle's been thinking about stablecoin finance for close to a decade,” he said, noting that the company sees this moment as a rewriting of global financial infrastructure.

He revealed that onboarding a partner with 10 million wallets could cost over $100 million on a public chain — a challenge that inspired Circle to create Arc.

With 5 billion users now able to access financial services directly through a browser, Chandhok explained, “we need a chain that can make that possible.”