Arc vs Sonic

Arc is an open layer 1 blockchain developed by Circle, the issuer of USDC, and designed for stablecoin finance. It uses USDC as its native gas token so that fees are paid in dollars with predictable costs, offers sub-second deterministic finality and is EVM-compatible for developers. Arc targets payments, foreign exchange, capital markets and tokenized assets, with an integrated stablecoin FX engine and optional privacy features for institutional use cases. It connects natively to Circle's products such as USDC, EURC and the Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol.

Sonic is an ultra‑fast EVM Layer‑1 claimed to reach 400k TPS and sub‑second finality via a custom SonicVM and DAG‑based consensus dubbed Tempo. Blocks are final once two‑thirds of stake attest, and state is stored in an in‑memory ledger that snapshots to disk every epoch. The project focuses on GameFi and real‑time social dApps, with an incentive testnet launched in May 2025.