On October 22, 2026, an on-chain perpetual futures exchange completed its migration from Starknet to Circle's Arc, shifting its settlement infrastructure and carrying approximately $120 million in total value locked with it. Open positions and orders came along intact, and trading is live on Arc, Crypto Briefing reported. On Arc the exchange now accepts native USDC as its main collateral and cirBTC as its Bitcoin collateral asset, while USDT and wBTC are not supported. The same report describes the move as the first step in a broader partnership with Circle.

Why It Matters

The first change is to the margin itself. Holders of more than $1 of USDT or wBTC had to act by October 21, 2026: they could withdraw, or convert into USDC or cirBTC at a 1:1 rate plus a 0.50% premium. ETH balances converted automatically to wETH. A narrower collateral menu means margin sits in fewer assets, and cirBTC is a token issued by Circle and backed 1:1 by Bitcoin. The report does not describe cirBTC's redemption terms or how it is valued as margin, so those are questions for a trader to ask rather than facts to assume. It also does not say what happened to balances that were neither withdrawn nor converted, so that outcome is unconfirmed here.

The second change is the settlement layer. Arc is Circle's EVM-compatible Layer 1, and its mainnet launched on September 16, 2026, roughly five weeks before the move. Gas fees on Arc are paid in USDC, and in an August 5, 2026 post the Arc team listed fees payable in stablecoins, starting with USDC, and sub-second transaction finality among its design features. In our reading, that means network costs are denominated in USDC, although the report does not say how the exchange sets its own trading fees. Arc had about five weeks of public mainnet history at the time of the move, although its August announcement describes an earlier private mainnet. Traders assessing the migration should distinguish that earlier operation from the chain's shorter public mainnet track record. Finality matters for margin because it affects how quickly a transfer or a liquidation is treated as settled, and the report gives no figures for how the chain has performed under load.

The third change is friction. Deposits and withdrawals paused briefly during the transition and have since been restored. A day earlier, Crypto Briefing had reported that the pause was expected to last up to two hours. The October 22 follow-up report lists what to track next: whether TVL grows beyond the approximately $120 million that made the trip, and how cirBTC adoption develops as Bitcoin collateral. For anyone who held other collateral, the practical question was whether to convert before the deadline or withdraw and re-deposit, and each route carried its own timing and conversion terms. The collateral menu, the fee denomination and the exit route may change together in a chain migration, so a trader's checklist gets longer than usual.

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On LeverUp, perpetual futures trade through a protocol-managed virtual liquidity architecture.