USDC stablecoin issuer Circle has launched Circle StableFX, an institutional-grade foreign exchange engine that enables 24/7 stablecoin currency pair trading with on-chain payments on the Arc blockchain network.
The company also announced Circle Partner Stablecoins, a program that supports select regions. stable coin According to a press release shared with , the deployment will take place on Arc, creating a unified infrastructure stack for global exchange activities. decryption.
The two services are built on Arc’s Layer 1 blockchain, whose public testnet was launched last month with over 100 participants including BlackRock, Visa, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Standard Chartered, BNY, State Street, ICE, AWS, Cloudflare, Mastercard, Coinbase, Kraken, Robinhood, and more.
The initiative targets inefficiencies in the foreign exchange market, which still operates with fragmented exchanges, pre-funded accounts and T+1 settlement cycles.
T+1 settlement means that when trading an asset, the actual transfer of funds and ownership occurs on the next business day rather than immediately.
By combining Arc’s programmable payments infrastructure with stablecoin-powered transactions, Circle aims to enable real-time cross-border currency exchange while reducing counterparty risk and capital requirements.
“With StableFX and our Circle partner Stablecoins, we are connecting the world’s currencies on Arc,” Nikhil Chandhok, Circle’s chief product technology officer, said in a press release.
The announcement comes on the heels of Circle’s strong third-quarter results, where the company reported $740 million in revenue and reserve income, 66% higher than analyst expectations year-over-year.
According to CoinGecko, USDC’s market capitalization has grown from $61 billion at Circle’s June IPO to more than $76 billion, and it remains behind Tether’s USDT, which has more than $184 billion.
How StableFX works
StableFX operates through a request for quote model that connects financial institutions with multiple liquidity providers, offering competitive pricing with low slippage.
The platform features on-chain payments where both payment and delivery occur simultaneously, eliminating the risk of one party failing to deliver funds after receiving the other party’s currency.
The all-to-all model eliminates the need for bilateral agreements with multiple trading partners.
Currently running on the Arc testnet, StableFX is available to approved institutions that have completed Know-Your-Business and anti-money laundering validation ahead of Arc’s planned mainnet launch in 2026.
Arc uses USDC for transaction fees, has sub-second finality, and has an opt-in privacy configuration designed to meet institutional compliance requirements.
During the testnet launch, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said the project was showing “significant early momentum” and said the company was exploring the possibility of a native Arc token in its third quarter report.
Regional stablecoin partnerships
Circle Partner Stablecoins targets non-USD pegged stablecoin issuers that meet technical, operational, and reserve management criteria.
Early participants include Avenia (Brazilian Real), Forte (Australian Dollar), JYPC (Japanese Yen), Juno (Mexican Peso), Busan Digital Asset Custody Service (Korean Won), Stablecorp (Canadian Dollar), Luno (South African Rand), and Coins.ph (Philippine Peso).
These stablecoins will be integrated into Circle’s payment network and StableFX, extending their utility beyond the domestic market.
