Extended, a decentralized exchange built around perpetual contracts, has fully moved to Arc. Trading is live, with USDC and cirBTC as the accepted collateral.
How the move went down
The migration took place on October 22, 2026, at 13:00 UTC. Extended shifted its settlement infrastructure from Starknet to Arc, carrying approximately $120 million in total value locked (TVL) with it.
Open positions and orders came along intact. Traders did not need to close out and rebuild their books on the other side.
Deposits and withdrawals did pause briefly during the transition. Both have since been restored.
The collateral menu changed, though. On Arc, Extended now accepts native USDC as its main collateral and cirBTC as its Bitcoin collateral asset.
cirBTC is a token issued by Circle and backed 1:1 by Bitcoin.
Two familiar assets did not survive the trip. USDT and wBTC are not supported on Arc.
Users holding more than $1 of USDT or wBTC had to act by October 21, 2026. They could either withdraw or convert into USDC or cirBTC at a 1:1 rate plus a 0.50% premium.
ETH holders got off easier. Their balances converted automatically to wETH during the migration.
What Arc brings to the table
Arc is Circle’s EVM-compatible Layer 1 blockchain. The network launched its mainnet on September 16, 2026. Extended’s arrival comes roughly five weeks later.
Arc offers sub-second deterministic finality. Gas fees on Arc are paid in USDC.
The validator lineup includes founding validators such as BlackRock, DTCC, ICE, Visa, and Mastercard.
Extended also gains access to Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP). CCTP lets USDC move natively between blockchains, rather than relying on wrapped versions issued by third-party bridges.
The Circle partnership and Extended’s track record
The migration is described as the first step in a broader partnership between Extended and Circle.
Extended reports more than $200 billion in lifetime trading volume across multiple asset classes, including traditional stocks and digital currencies.
What this means for traders and the perps market
For existing Extended users, the immediate changes are practical. Collateral options narrowed to USDC and cirBTC, and anyone still holding USDT or wBTC had to make a decision before the October 21 deadline.
The 0.50% conversion premium sweetened that deal. Exchanges rarely pay users to switch assets, so the incentive suggests Extended wanted the collateral base consolidated quickly and cleanly.
The things to track from here: whether TVL grows beyond the approximately $120 million that made the trip, how cirBTC adoption develops as Bitcoin collateral, and what the next phase of the Extended and Circle partnership actually delivers.
Disclosure: This article was edited by John Chen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.