FAQ
What is Arc Trace, in one sentence?
A verification, analytics, and data network for tokenized real-world assets — combining the transparency of an onchain explorer with the depth of a professional market-intelligence terminal.
What problem does it actually solve?
Blockchain settlement makes transactions transparent, but that is not the same as understanding an asset. The same underlying security can be represented by different issuers, across different chains, under different legal and operational structures. A ticker alone does not tell you which contract is canonical, who the issuer and custodian are, what legal claim the token carries, how it is backed, which oracle prices it, or how a stock split will be handled. Those answers exist today, but scattered across issuer disclosures, legal documents, block explorers, oracle interfaces, trading venues, and market-data platforms.
Do I need to pay to use Arc Trace?
No. Arc Explorer is free and covers discovery, contract verification, Asset Passports, oracle-versus-market deviation, liquidity, and a basic risk score. Payment is only for Arc Terminal's advanced intelligence.
Why are subscriptions priced in USDC rather than ARC?
So subscribers pay a stable, dollar-denominated price instead of calculating a volatile token amount at checkout. The ARC demand is created behind the scenes by the buyback, rather than pushed onto the user at the point of payment.
Does the Access Pass give me ownership of anything?
No. The Access Pass is a non-transferable record of what your subscription entitles you to and when it expires. It grants no equity, no revenue share, no dividend, no governance right by itself, and no interest in any asset that Arc Trace indexes. It is a receipt for software access.
Why is the Access Pass non-transferable?
To reduce unauthorized resale and account sharing. The trade-off is real: you cannot sell or transfer remaining time on a subscription.
What happens to my subscription if the Terminal goes offline?
Your Access Pass records entitlement onchain, but the Terminal is a hosted product — if it is unavailable, the pass cannot deliver the service on its own. There is no automatic refund mechanism, and USDC already routed to buyback-and-burn has been spent and cannot be returned. This is a genuine risk of paying in advance, and you should weigh it against choosing monthly over annual billing.
Does buying a subscription make ARC go up?
It creates market demand and permanently reduces supply. That is a fact about mechanics, not a prediction about price. Burn mechanics do not guarantee price appreciation, and ARC can lose value regardless of how much is burned. Do not buy a subscription as an investment in the token.
If 100% of subscription revenue is burned, how does Arc Trace pay its bills?
From separate revenue: enterprise data licensing, issuer services, white-label products, and grants and treasury. The separation is the point — if operating costs came out of subscription revenue, the burn would be whatever was left over rather than a commitment.
Is a Arc Trace risk score a safety rating?
No. It makes an asset's material risks visible and comparable under a published methodology. It never declares an asset safe. Current dimension weights are illustrative and the final methodology has not been developed with the market, legal, security, and data specialists it requires.
Can an issuer pay for a better score?
No. Commercial relationships are kept separate from risk scoring. Issuer bonds are accountability mechanisms for disclosure availability, disputes, and anti-spam protection — not payments for favorable ratings.
If I hold a tokenized stock, do I own the stock?
That depends entirely on the issuer and the structure, which is exactly why the Asset Passport has a Legal claim field. Issuer documentation for this asset class typically states that stock Tokens are tokenized debt securities providing economic exposure to referenced securities, and do not grant direct legal or beneficial ownership of the underlying securities. Never assume the structure from a ticker symbol.
Why start on ARC Mainnet?
It is an EVM-compatible network designed for financial services and tokenized real-world assets, with native USDC support, standard ERC-20 stock tokens, and established Ethereum tooling. That combination makes it a coherent environment for the first product. ARC Mainnet is intended as Arc Trace's origin, not its ceiling — a global intelligence network must eventually compare assets across other networks where tokenized assets are issued.
Is ARC live? Can I buy it?
No. No contract has been deployed and no token is trading. Supply, distribution, and launch mechanics are still being decided. Any ARC token, presale, allocation claim, or airdrop you encounter today is fraudulent — see Security.