How Circle’s institutional Arc blockchain got taken over by memecoins on day one
Circle blockchain Arc’s first day was dominated by memecoins, and the traders behind them had already moved on by Thursday morning.
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Summary
- Arc processed 7.83 million transactions in its first 24 hours, but only about 624,000 USDC transfers over the chain’s entire life — the payments use case it was built for barely registered.
- Day-one DEX volume reached roughly $82 million, less than a tenth of the $878 million Robinhood Chain hit during its own memecoin takeover in July. Top tokens including TOLLY, LONG and COOL are down 56% to 77% from launch highs.
- Circle’s VP of product for Arc posted an AI-generated image promoting a memecoin on launch day, drawing about 1 million views and accusations that the company was shilling tokens to bootstrap its own network.
