Annualized settlement volume jumped from $3.5 billion to $20 billion in less than a year.
Visa has joined the founding validator cohort for Circle's Arc L1 blockchain, shifting from routing transactions to operating core infrastructure. Other participants in the group include BlackRock, DTCC, Mastercard, and ICE. Arc L1 launched its mainnet on September 16, 2026, as a permissioned, USDC-native environment tailored for financial markets and automated artificial intelligence activity.
The operational expansion comes amid rapid volume growth. In November 2025, Visa processed stablecoin settlements at an annualized run rate of $3.5 billion. That figure rose to $7 billion in April 2026 and reached an annualized $20 billion in September 2026, marking a 15-fold increase year over year.
Visa is using a dual-chain operational model. It keeps Solana as its primary rail for production settlements on a seven-day cycle with partners such as Cross River Bank and Lead Bank, while using Arc L1 for institutional validation. Visa currently operates across more than 160 card programs in over 50 countries.
Arc represents the kind of compliant, high-trust network infrastructure needed to help support the growth of onchain payments. Visa is proud to participate as a validator and help secure it.
The build-out comes ahead of regulatory enforcement under the GENIUS Act scheduled for January 18, 2027. Federal agencies missed a July 2026 deadline for rulemaking, prompting institutions to establish compliant validator networks ahead of final codified rules.
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