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What is Arc?

Arc is an EVM-compatible layer 1 from Circle. It pairs the Reth execution client with Malachite BFT consensus, and it uses USDC for gas instead of a volatile native token. Chainstack serves both Arc Mainnet and Arc Testnet. The two networks carry different chain IDs — 5042 and 5042002 — so a transaction signed for one is rejected by the other.
The Try it panels on every method page in this section run against a public Arc Testnet endpoint. The request and response shapes are identical on mainnet; only the chain ID and the data differ.

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Key characteristics

  • USDC as gas — transaction fees are paid in USDC, so costs are predictable in dollar terms.
  • Sub-second blocks — Arc produces a block roughly every 0.5 seconds under Malachite BFT consensus, with deterministic finality rather than probabilistic confirmation.
  • Standard EVM surface — the eth_* methods behave as they do on any Reth node, so existing tooling works unchanged.
  • Full debug and trace — both the debug_* namespace and the Parity-style trace_* namespace are available.
  • A custom arc_* namespace — two methods that have no equivalent on other chains, covering the node build and the consensus commit certificate.

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Network details

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Namespaces

Chainstack Arc nodes expose eth, debug, trace, txpool, net, web3, and rpc, plus the custom arc namespace.
rpc_modules does not list arc, because that namespace is registered outside the standard module registry. Both arc_* methods work regardless. Do not use rpc_modules as an inventory of what the node serves — see Arc methods for verified per-method availability.

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Two things that differ from other EVM chains

Pending transactions are not observable. Arc rejects both eth_newPendingTransactionFilter and eth_subscribe("newPendingTransactions") with -32001. The txpool_* methods do work, so you can inspect the pool, but you cannot stream new pending transactions as they arrive. Most historical queries bill as archive. The standard rule is that a request 127 or more blocks behind the tip bills as archive. At roughly 0.5 seconds per block that covers only about a minute of history, against roughly 25 minutes on Ethereum. See Request units.

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Getting an endpoint

  1. Sign up with Chainstack.
  2. Deploy a node on Arc Mainnet or Arc Testnet. Arc Testnet offers Full and Archive on Global Nodes. Arc Mainnet Global Nodes are Full, and Archive is available on Dedicated Nodes.
  3. View node access and credentials.
Every method page in this section carries a Try it panel wired to a public Arc Testnet endpoint, so you can run any call before deploying anything.

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Where to go next

Arc namespace

Method availability

Debug and trace

Transaction pool

Last modified on September 16, 2026