The Unfinished Business of Finance, Machine Commerce, and Global Money: A Request For Builders
Summary
Stablecoins proved digital dollars can move at scale. Arc is designed for what comes next: programmable money that can power global finance, autonomous agents, onchain credit, and intelligent accounts. These four frontiers show where builders can turn new financial primitives into applications that were not possible before — with ecosystem programs and strategic venture funding to support builders at every stage.
Stablecoins settle trillions of dollars annually. That volume proves the money works. What it does not yet prove is what money can do once it becomes programmable — once a dollar can carry conditions, settle against a verified outcome, or be spent by software without a person in the loop.
The infrastructure gap is what held those applications back. Building them meant paying for slow or probabilistic settlement, stitching FX together across venues, choosing between confidentiality and compliance, and absorbing fee volatility. Arc is designed to addresses those constraints in one place: sub-second deterministic finality, integrated stablecoin FX, planned privacy features designed to support selective disclosure, predictable fees, and an agent-native design.
What remains is the unfinished business of programmable money. Below are four frontiers where those primitives make something buildable that was not buildable before, and where we think the significant remaining opportunities sit: global money and embedded finance, the agentic economy, onchain credit, and the intelligent account.
Global money and embedded finance
Stablecoins have helped solve access to dollars. What's missing is functionality so deeply embedded that the user never needs to know how money moves at all — the same way you don't think about TCP/IP when you send an email.
- Local-market financial platforms: Build for one specific country, corridor, or community, where local context is the moat. Combine dollar access, FX, savings, and payments with the distribution, licensing, and user experience no global product could ever provide.
- Programmable trade workflows: Turn commercial agreements into software: milestone releases, dispute workflows, and conditional settlement written as contract logic over USDC payment rails.
- Borderless payroll: Design the employer-facing product that handles local onboarding, compliance, tax, and treasury funding, so paying forty people across twelve countries feels like one simple workflow.
The agentic economy
Circle Agent Stack allows agents to hold funds, discover services, and transact in USDC. The capability is there, but the agentic economy now needs businesses that operate on those rails, markets that price the work agents do, and instruments that cover what happens when they fail.
- Autonomous businesses: Deploy a team of agents that hold a treasury on Arc, pay for services in USDC, and are left to cook. The opportunity isn't the agents themselves, it’s the businesses they become: zero-person companies that earn, spend, and settle entirely onchain.
- Outcome marketplaces: Post an objective and a USDC bounty for agents or humans to deliver, with payment released on verified completion against an agreed standard. Labor becomes priced by results and settled near-instantly to whoever (or whatever) completes the work.
- Agentic insurance: Underwrite the risks of autonomous agents executing deposits, swaps, and rebalances, with parametric payouts on verified loss events, real premium schedules, and a claims path that works.
Start: Circle Agent Stack
Onchain credit and collateral
The first era of tokenization proved that almost any asset can be issued onchain. The next unlock is making tokenized assets financeable, which requires three things the first era did not deliver: collateral a lender can verify, privacy that is designed to support disclosure requirements, and risk models institutions are willing to underwrite against.
- Collateral APIs: Build the layer that lets any brokerage, neobank, or consumer platform extend USDC credit against assets their customers already hold (tokenized or not), monitored onchain with rates sourced through transparent markets.
- Long-tail credit markets: Bring equipment finance, trade receivables, royalties, and other fragmented assets to investors who can’t efficiently access them today, expanding the universe of investable RWAs.
- Embedded risk protection: Bundle smart-contract, vault-loss, or collateral-risk protection directly into USDC deposit and lending flows, with premiums netted from yield and standardized coverage metadata available across vaults.
Start: Arc Privacy + App Kits
The intelligent account
Consumer money has changed at the edges, but the form factor is still mostly manual: hold, tap, transfer, wait. What changes when programmability allows money to interact with third-party financial applications, move in fractions of a cent, delegate to an agent, and cross borders without intermediaries?
- The family personal office: Reimagine the coordinated financial management of a family office as a programmable personal-finance experience. Manage cash, savings, bills, subscriptions, and investments from a single programmable balance — everyday treasury decisions should be automated, 24/7, and user-executed only when needed.
- Pod portfolios: Create programmable baskets around specialist managers or themes (think “AI infrastructure,” “gold plus defense,” or “macro hedge”) behind a single interface. The user chooses their exposure, the system handles the rest.
- Money with a mandate: Launch bounded agents, set risk limits, and compete on performance across transparent strategies. Arc and Circle Gateway can help those agents access and move USDC across supported networks without forcing them to migrate across chains.
Start: Circle Gateway + App Kits + Circle Agent Stack
Ways to build with us on Arc
These Requests for Builders are starting points, not prerequisites. You do not need to fit neatly into one of the ideas above. Whether you're experimenting with an idea, already shipping a product, or building a venture-scale company, there is a path into the Arc ecosystem.
Just getting started?
Microgrants support early experiments, prototypes, and promising ideas that need a push to get to the next stage.
Apply for a microgrant →
Already shipping?
Developer Grants support businesses and production-grade applications already building on Arc, with milestone-based funding, technical guidance, ecosystem support, and opportunities to scale their impact.
Learn and apply for a developer grant →
Building a category-defining company?
Through the Arc Builders Fund and Circle Ventures Investor Network, qualifying companies may be considered for strategic investment, ecosystem support, introductions, and long-term partnership opportunities.
Submit your investor deck →
Hackathons, Accelerators & Builder Programs
Arc House is the home for the Arc builder community and the place to discover opportunities to learn, build, and connect — from hackathons and accelerators to workshops, office hours, events, and other ecosystem initiatives.
Explore what’s happening on Arc House →
Ready to put Arc to the test?
The Arc Bug Bounty rewards eligible security researchers for responsibly identifying vulnerabilities across Arc’s chain, protocol, and product surfaces, with payouts of up to $1 million based on severity and potential impact.
View rewards and eligibility →
You don't need to fit neatly into one of the ideas above. If you have a thesis for what becomes possible when money is programmable, we want to see it.
Arc is an open L1 blockchain launched by Arc Network Services LLC ("Arc LLC") and operated by a permissioned validator set. Arc LLC provides software services only and does not offer regulated financial or advisory services. Arc has not been reviewed or approved by the New York State Department of Financial Services or any other regulatory authority.
The Arc network is provided "as is" and "as available." Use of Arc involves inherent risks associated with blockchain technology, including smart contract vulnerabilities, network disruptions, and the absence of recourse for transaction errors or losses. The ability to transact on Arc depends on the ability to obtain and use USDC to pay gas fees. Neither Arc LLC nor any permissioned validator is responsible for the content, accuracy, legality, or functionality of third-party applications, protocols, or services built on or integrated with Arc. You are solely responsible for features or services you provide to users, including obtaining any necessary licenses or approvals and otherwise complying with applicable laws.
All Arc features may be modified, delayed, or cancelled at any time without notice. Nothing herein constitutes a commitment, warranty, guarantee or legal, regulatory, tax, or investment advice.
StableFX is offered by Circle Technology Services, LLC (“CTS”). CTS is a software provider and does not provide regulated financial or advisory services. You are solely responsible for services you provide to users, including obtaining any necessary licenses or approvals and otherwise complying with applicable laws. StableFX is a collection of API and on-chain smart contracts that enable data sharing between counterparties to a transaction without intermediation by CTS. CTS’s role is limited to broadcasting information between the relevant parties and to the on-chain smart contract that enables settlement directly between the relevant parties. CTS does not accept or transmit digital assets on behalf of StableFX users. The product features described in these materials are for informational purposes only. All product features may be modified, delayed, or cancelled without prior notice, at any time and at the sole discretion of Circle Technology Services, LLC. Nothing herein constitutes a commitment, warranty, guarantee or investment advice.
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“Arc Builders Fund” is a descriptive label for a Circle Ventures internal initiative. No fund or investment vehicle is being formed and no investors are being solicited. Any referenced capital may be deployed by Circle Ventures, at its sole discretion, and may differ from amounts described. The “Investor Network” refers to third‑party firms interested in reviewing Arc opportunities. Members have no commitment to invest; any decision will be made independently based on their own diligence. Circle Ventures is not acting as an investment adviser to any person or as an intermediary in any securities offering. Circle Ventures will not receive remuneration from Investor Network. Any introductions are solely for convenience so potential investors can engage directly with issuers. Eligibility to participate in any offering by an issuer, if and when made, will be determined solely by that issuer and its counsel, including any requirements relating to investor status, suitability, jurisdiction, and compliance with applicable laws. Nothing herein is investment, legal, accounting, or tax advice. Prospective investors should conduct their own diligence and consult their advisors.