Arc Mainnet, Day One: the Tools That Trade On It, Checked the Morning It Went Live
Last verified: September 16, 2026, morning. Chain settings read on docs.arc.io that morning; tool support from official posts and from our own in-app chain counts (dates per row). We have not traded on Arc yet; this page gains in-app badges as we do. Referral links marked where present.
The short version: Arc is Circle's chain: USDC is the gas token, blocks are final in under a second, it runs the EVM, and its validators are institutions, not anonymous nodes. Mainnet went live on September 16, 2026, as announced.
Among the tools we cover, BasedBot announced Arc trading the same morning; Maestro and GMGN already had Arc in their chain selectors when we counted them; FOMO is live on Arc on day one per Arc's own announcement of September 15, and Cielo announced Arc the same morning; we are checking both apps. What is not confirmed: any launchpad, any "official" bridge outside Circle's own routes, and any ARC token or airdrop.
Already sold? Open BasedBot on Telegram (ref link, it pays us and costs you nothing) · Get the FOMO app (ref link, it pays us and cuts your fee to 0.45%)
Or keep reading: the official settings, the tools and the bridge rule are below.
Read this before you touch Arc. Launch mornings are when wallets get emptied. Five things that were already circulating on September 16, 2026:
1. Fake bridges. People reported losing funds through unofficial bridge sites this morning. Never reach a bridge through a search ad, a tweet or a DM; type the address yourself.
2. Fake network settings. A third-party RPC was being passed around as "the" Arc RPC. The official one is rpc.mainnet.arc.io, chain ID 5042, nothing else (table below).
3. Fake ARC airdrops. Circle has announced no public token, no claim, no snapshot. Any "claim your ARC" page is a drainer.
4. Fake tokens and "number one launchpads". Nothing on Arc has a verifiable track record yet. A token trending in a Telegram channel is paid placement, not demand.
5. Fake support. No bot, bridge or chain team will DM you first.
How to get on Arc: three routes, easiest first
The official settings, and only those
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Network name | Arc |
| Chain ID | 5042 |
| RPC | https://rpc.mainnet.arc.io |
| Explorer | https://explorer.arc.io |
| Gas token | USDC, 18 decimals |
Source: docs.arc.io, Connect to Arc, read on September 16, 2026. Community guides were already circulating a different RPC that morning; use Circle's, and add the network by hand in your wallet rather than from a link.
Pick your door
The tools, compared
| Tool | Type | Fee | Arc support | Source, dated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 BasedBot | Telegram bot | 1%, cashback 5-25% | Live, announced | Official X post, Sept 16, 2026; Arc (USDC) in the docs' bridge table official |
 Maestro | Telegram bot | 1%, cashback 15-30% | In the chain selector | Counted in the bot Aug 27, 2026 in-app; day-one trade not yet tested |
 GMGN | Terminal + bot | 1% flat | In the chain selector | Counted in the selector Aug 19, 2026 in-app; day-one trade not yet tested |
 FOMO | Mobile app | 0.5% (min $0.95) | Live on day one, announced | Arc official X post, Sept 15, 2026 official; co-founder statement Aug 30; app check pending |
 Tator | Web + iOS, in observation | 0.80% spot | Listed, not recommended yet | Google Play chain list, Sept 1, 2026; still in our incubator |
 Banana Gun | Telegram bot | 1% (0.5% manual ETH) | Not confirmed | bananagun.io listed 8 chains without Arc on Sept 14, 2026; a blog post of Aug 11 mentioned Arc; community posts claim support through referral links, which is not a source |
 Cielo | Terminal + bot | 0.6% / 1% | Announced | Cielo announced Arc on Sept 16, 2026, seen by us official; tracking, trading or both, we confirm in the app today |
Badges: in-app means we counted or used it ourselves inside the app on that date; official means the tool's own post or documentation. No row carries a day-one trade badge yet.
What Arc actually is
Arc is built by Circle, the company behind USDC. Its official launch post on September 16, 2026 describes it as an open platform for global markets, tokenized assets and agentic activity, with USDC as native gas, deterministic sub-second finality, EVM compatibility and institutional validators, and "190+ institutional and ecosystem builders".
The validators are named: BlackRock, DTCC, Galaxy, Global Payments, ICE, Mastercard, MoneyGram, SBI, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo and Visa, per Circle's press release of August 5, 2026. It is a proof-of-authority chain: fast and institutional, not permissionless in the way Solana or Base are.
DeFi announced by Circle for launch: Uniswap v4 (already live on the private mainnet in August), Aave, Morpho, Aerodrome. Wallets and exchanges named: MetaMask, Ledger, Binance Wallet, Kraken, Upbit, Fireblocks. OpenSea announced NFT support from day one.
The ARC token: what is announced and what is not
Circle closed a $222M private presale for an ARC token in May 2026 (a16z, BlackRock, Apollo among buyers, per Decrypt). As of September 16, 2026, no public token launch, listing or airdrop has been announced.
So any "ARC airdrop", claim site or snapshot date circulating today does not come from Circle. Treat it as a scam until Circle says otherwise; this page will say so, dated, if that changes.
The bridge rule, because people lost money this morning
Community posts on launch morning already reported users losing funds through unofficial bridges. We could not verify those losses, and we do not need to: the rule is the same on every new chain, and it is the whole of our new chain guide in one line.
Fund Arc only through routes Circle documents, or through a bot you already use that bridges for you. Circle's cross-chain transfer protocol (CCTP) is the native way USDC moves; Kraken is named by Circle as a launch partner. Any bridge you found through a tweet or a search ad is exactly the kind that empties wallets in week one. We will bridge a small amount ourselves through an official route and report the time and cost here.
Two more rules, condensed: contract addresses from primary sources only (the token's official channels, cross-checked, never an address posted "helpfully" in a group), and trade like the infrastructure is beta, because on day one it is: small sizes, wider slippage, profits skimmed out.
Launchpads and "trending" tokens: nothing verified yet
Two launchpads announced themselves for launch day through paid press releases in August and September; neither had a verifiable product before mainnet. Community posts this morning name others. We have not verified any of them: no contract on the explorer, no volume on an aggregator we trust. When one shows real, checkable activity, it appears here with a date. Until then, "the number one launchpad on Arc" is a claim, not a fact.
What we will check next, today
FOMO's chain list, and what exactly Cielo opened. A small USDC bridge through Relay or Jumper, timed and priced. A first swap on BasedBot with the fee and slippage measured. Whether Maestro and GMGN actually execute on Arc or only list it. Each result lands here with its time, and the table above gains its first day-one badges.
Try it
Open BasedBot on Telegram Get the FOMO app
(ref links) Both buttons are referral links: the tools pay us a share of fees at no cost to you, and FOMO cuts your fee to 0.45%. They are the two doors we would use on Arc ourselves; every tool in the table got the same row and the same dated check either way.
FAQ
Which trading bots support Arc on day one?
BasedBot announced it officially the morning of September 16, 2026, and Arc itself announced FOMO for day one on September 15; Cielo announced Arc the same morning. Maestro and GMGN already showed Arc in their selectors when we counted them in-app. Banana Gun had not listed Arc on its site as of September 14.
What are the official Arc mainnet settings?
Chain ID 5042, RPC https://rpc.mainnet.arc.io, explorer https://explorer.arc.io, gas in USDC with 18 decimals, per docs.arc.io on September 16, 2026. Add it by hand in your wallet from those values.
Is there an ARC token airdrop?
No public launch or airdrop announced as of September 16, 2026. The May 2026 presale was private. Anything promising a claim today is not from Circle.
How we're paid on this page: the review links above lead to pages whose outbound links may be referral links, always marked "(ref link)" there.
BasedBot, Maestro, Banana Gun, GMGN and Cielo pay us a referral share through those marked links; FOMO pays us and gives you a fee discount; Tator is under observation and gets no recommendation here. Every tool in the table got the same row and the same dated check either way.
New tools the week they launch. The settings and fees that quietly cost you money. Alpha I would tell a friend.
Free, unsubscribe in one click. Spot an error on the site? Reply and tell me, it gets fixed the same day.