Intro
Arch Network is a Layer 1 built for a single job clearing credit on Bitcoin.
Clearing is the machinery that sits behind a loan: pricing a position, seizing collateral when it breaches, and settling the proceeds with finality. General-purpose chains treat that as one, undifferentiated transaction competing for block space. Arch is designed around that limitation: liquidations get a reserved priority lane, and pricing, execution and settlement happen in a single atomic state transition.
Arch is an independent chain with its own VM, consensus and validator set — not an L2. Finality occurs on Arch within 300ms and can optionally settle to Bitcoin with a natively-constructed Bitcoin transaction by the ArchVM, signed by validators under a FROST + ROAST threshold scheme, and settled on Bitcoin's base layer. ~1,000 TPS, Taproot-native.
The network issues archUSD, the dollar credit on Arch is denominated in and settled against. Backed 1:1 by USDC.
Two things share the name. Arch Network is the chain described above — neutral infrastructure anyone extending credit can settle through. Arch Prime is a prime brokerage built on it: the network's anchor tenant, and the first business clearing through it at scale. Most of these docs are clearer if you keep them apart.
No custodial risk. Your assets remain in distributed threshold control, NOT a balance sheet.
Next: Overview for what the network runs and where it stands · The Arch Thesis for why credit needs its own chain.