Stage 2 · Money on Arc · Lesson 07
Sending money on Arc
Your first real transfer on Arc, step by step: addresses, amounts, the fraction-of-a-cent fee, and the checks that make an irreversible payment safe to make.
Sending USDC on Arc is the simplest thing the network does — and the one operation where a mistake cannot be undone. So this lesson is half mechanics, half checklist.
The mechanics, in four steps
Open your wallet on the Arc network. Paste the recipient's address. Enter the amount — you are denominating in dollars, so there is no mental math. Review the fee, a fraction of a cent in USDC, and confirm. In under a second it is done — not processing, done, finally and irreversibly, and both of you can see it on the public ledger.
The checklist that matters more than the mechanics
- Verify the address at both ends. Check the first four and last four characters against what the recipient gave you; malware exists that swaps addresses in your clipboard, and this check defeats it.
- Send a test amount first for any meaningful transfer — a dollar, confirmed received, then the balance. The extra fee is less than a cent, which makes this the cheapest insurance in finance.
- Confirm the network with the recipient. USDC on Arc, and they should know what that means; if they gave you an exchange deposit address, confirm that exchange accepts Arc deposits before sending anything.
- Be suspicious of new addresses delivered by message. An invoice email or DM with a new address is the classic interception scam; verify by a second channel.
What just quietly happened
Compare what you did against the old rails: an international wire at 1–5% and days, a remittance service with real fees at the counter, a card payment that settles in days and stays reversible for months. You moved dollars anywhere on earth in under a second for under a cent, with no institution's permission or business hours involved. This — not tokens or speculation — is the thing Arc was actually built for, and why payment giants operate its validators.
