Circle's New Arc: Is ETH Just an Asset for Institutions?

Circle's Litepaper for its new L1, Arc, is presented by the author as a compliance-focused bet on institutional finance rather than a decentralized network like Ethereum. The author notes that Arc would launch with 20 validators, argues that decentralization matters less for institutions that already trust one another, and says Circle is not claiming support for use cases beyond stablecoins. Arc would use USDC as its gas token and a modified EIP-1599 fee mechanism, which Circle claims makes USDC fees more stable. The author says Circle's EVM-compatibility claim does not hold up in full, citing precompiles that affect application portability.