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Circle's $222M Arc Token Sale Pulls SBI and Asia Capital Into the Next Stablecoin Rail HONG KONG — Circle has closed a $222 million private placement for the native token of Arc, its forthcoming Layer 1 blockchain, at a $3 billion fully diluted valuation — and from this side of the dateline the more interesting line item is who else cut the check.
a16z anchored the round with $75 million, but the syndicate stretched well past the usual venture roster. BlackRock, Apollo, Intercontinental Exchange, General Catalyst and Ark Invest all came in.
So did Tokyo-based SBI Group, the clearest signal yet that Arc is being positioned as a settlement venue for institutional flows that originate, or want to originate, in Asia-Pacific.
Arc is being engineered not for the retail speculator chain of 2021 but for regulated balance sheets and, in the more speculative pitch, the autonomous AI agents that traditional finance now talks about openly.
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