arc

arc, short for AI Rig Complex, is a Solana token and developer community built around Rig, an open-source Rust library for building AI agents. It is run by Playgrounds Analytics Inc. and lives at arc.fun. This page is not about Circle's Arc blockchain, which went live in September 2026, and it has nothing to do with the Arc browser or the ARC-AGI benchmark.

The project has four parts. Rig is the code library. Ryzome is an AI workspace app from the same team. Handshake and Arc Forge are the programs that vet outside projects and help them launch tokens. The ARC token, fair-launched on pump.fun on 10 December 2024, ties them together.

How the Rig framework works: a Rust library for AI agents

Rig is a free Rust code library that connects an app to AI models through one shared set of commands. You write your agent once. You can then swap the AI model under it and keep the rest of your code. The Rig page on GitHub lists more than 20 model makers and more than 10 vector stores, the databases that agents use as long-term memory.

The model list covers OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, DeepSeek, Mistral, Ollama, OpenRouter and xAI. The memory stores come as add-on packages for MongoDB, LanceDB, Neo4j, Qdrant, SQLite and others. Rig also handles speech-to-text, audio and image models. It is released under the MIT licence, so you can use it in paid products at no cost.

Rig comes in two layers that you install as one package called rig. The first layer, rig-core, sets the shared rules for messages, tools and memory. The second, rig-agent, runs the loop that lets an agent work through a task in several steps. The core can also run inside a web browser.

Rust is the bet that sets Rig apart. Rust finds many bugs while the code is being built, before it ever runs. Solana's on-chain programs are written in Rust too, so you can build an agent in the same language as your Solana code. The arc.fun architecture page says Rig agents can link to Solana, Arbitrum and other chains to read data and call smart contracts.

There is one catch if you plan to build on it. Rig has not reached version 1.0, and its own guide warns that "future updates will contain breaking changes". Plan to fix up your code when new versions land.

Who uses Rig, and how active is the GitHub repo?

Rig is still being built at a fast pace, and it has real users outside crypto. On 5 October 2026 its GitHub page showed about 8,800 stars. On the same day crates.io, the main Rust package site, showed more than 3.2 million downloads of rig-core.

New versions come out every few weeks. An August release added Venice AI as a model option. The next one, version 0.43.0, came on 30 September 2026. Its release notes list a large rework of the core code, support for newer Anthropic and OpenAI models, and automatic caching to cut the cost of long agent runs.

The Rig guide names some of the teams that use it. St. Jude uses Rig for a chatbot inside a tool for viewing gene data. Neon, a database firm, used it to rebuild its app.build agent in Rust. Nethermind, Coral Protocol and Dria use it in their own agent products. Listen, a Rust toolkit for agents that manage a crypto portfolio, is the user closest to DeFi.

The Rig team wrote that list itself. It shows that people use the free library. It tells you nothing about demand for the ARC token.

Ryzome: from "agentic app store" to AI workspace

Ryzome is the app built by the arc team for everyday users, and it is live at ryzome.ai. It is a free AI workspace. You add files, notes and recordings to one library. You can then chat with them, map your ideas on a canvas and draft reports. The arc.fun site calls it "an infinite canvas where your knowledge comes alive with AI".

This is a smaller product than the one first announced. The arc litepaper came out on 7 March 2025. It pitched Ryzome as an "agentic app store", a market where AI agents find outside services and pay for them. The link between agent and service was to be Anthropic's Model Context Protocol, a common way for agents to talk to apps.

In that plan, every service fee would be paid in ARC. The service would keep 85%. Another 10% would go to an arc fund for grants, and 5% would cover the running costs of Playgrounds. The litepaper aimed for Ryzome to be "the universal hub for AI services" by 2026.

We read the Ryzome home page in October 2026. It does not mention ARC payments, a service market or that fee split. It offers a free workspace with no card needed. If you hold ARC because of the app-store plan, know that the fee model is a goal set in 2025. We could not confirm that it is running.

Arc Handshake and Arc Forge: how projects join and launch tokens

Handshake is arc's application process for outside teams, and Arc Forge is the token launch tool for the teams that pass. Together they are how a project built on Rig becomes part of the arc ecosystem and, if it wants one, gets a token paired with ARC.

The Handshake page sets out the rules. A team sends 500 ARC to a listed address as an anti-spam deposit and submits a proposal. The project must use Rig in some way. A token is optional. The page says "some doxing will be required", meaning the team has to identify itself to the reviewers.

Approved projects are added to the Arc Registry, a curated directory. The Handshake page also says select Solana projects are reviewed by the Solana Foundation, and that projects using Arbitrum Stylus can apply for Arbitrum DAO grants. A project that is selected then raises ARC or SOL to create its liquidity pool.

Arc Forge handles that launch. It is built on the Dynamic Liquidity Market Maker from Meteora MET$0.334+5.1%, which sorts liquidity into price bands, and it plugs into Jupiter JUP$0.293+2.9% routing so launched tokens are tradable through common trading bots from day one. The architecture page says trades route through ARC and that early price curves are set steeply to punish first-block sniper bots.

Arc Forge is limited to Handshake projects "for now", per arc.fun. We could not find a public list of tokens launched through it, so we cannot say how much it has been used.

ARC token: supply, tokenomics and what the coin is used for

ARC is a token on Solana with a supply of about 1 billion coins, and nearly all of them already trade freely. It launched on pump.fun on 10 December 2024 with no private sale. The official token address shown on arc.fun is ARC.

Check that address before you trade. Other tokens on Solana use the ARC ticker, and some are new pump.fun copies. Circle's Arc network shares the name too.

At launch, 90% of the supply went to the public. A prize pool and fund took 5.5%, and the team kept 4.5%, according to Crypto.com University. With so little held back, no large unlocks lie ahead. It also means the team has no big reserve of tokens to pay for its work.

The token has three uses that arc.fun spells out. It is the 500 ARC deposit for Handshake. It is the token that Arc Forge trades route through, with fees taken in ARC. It also pays for prize pools that reward people who help build Rig. Paying Ryzome service fees in ARC would be a fourth use if that plan ships.

ARC does not secure a blockchain. It has no staking and no validators, and we found no voting rights tied to it. The live data on this page shows the price and the number of holders.

Who is AI Rig Complex for?

AI Rig Complex fits two different groups, and they want different things from it.

Rust developers are the clearest fit. If you build Solana programs or backend services in Rust and want to add an AI agent without switching to Python or TypeScript, Rig gives you one interface to most major models and vector stores. You do not need to hold ARC or apply to Handshake to use it. The library is free under the MIT licence.

Teams building an agent product on Rig are the second group. Handshake offers them review, a registry listing and a launch path through Arc Forge. The cost is a 500 ARC deposit, a willingness to identify yourself, and a token whose liquidity is tied to ARC.

ARC holders are a third audience, with a weaker link to the product. Holding ARC is a position on the arc ecosystem's own fee and launch activity. It is not a claim on Rig's adoption, because anyone can use Rig without touching the token.

Rig is a poor fit if you do not write Rust, or if you need a stable API today. Most agent tooling and tutorials are still written for Python and TypeScript.

AI Rig Complex risks: is ARC safe?

The main risk is the gap between the code and the coin. Rig is a working library that people download and use for free. ARC is a token from pump.fun, and its uses rest on Handshake, Arc Forge and a Ryzome fee plan that we could not confirm is live. Free software can do well while its token gains little from that success.

Here is what else to know before you rely on arc:

• We found no published security audit of Rig, Arc Forge or Ryzome. Anyone can read Rig's code, but that is a weaker check than a paid outside review.
• The Handshake deposit goes to a wallet address shown on arc.fun. The page does not say who controls that wallet or whether you get the 500 ARC back.
• Our records list no on-chain programs owned by arc. Arc Forge runs on Meteora and Jupiter, so a fault in either one would reach Arc Forge launches too.
• The plan is thin. The litepaper from March 2025 is the last long plan on arc.fun, and Ryzome has since shipped as a different product.
• The name is crowded. Circle's Arc blockchain launched in September 2026, and some token data sites have mixed up news about the two. Check that you are reading about the right Arc.
• The team kept only 4.5% of the tokens, so it cannot lean on a large token reserve to pay for Rig. The arc.fun site does not say how Playgrounds is funded.

For builders, Rig's warning about breaking changes is a risk of its own. It has nothing to do with the token.

Rig vs ElizaOS and other AI agent frameworks

Rig is the Rust choice among the agent toolkits tied to crypto tokens. ElizaOS is written in TypeScript and ZerePy in Python. The language is the main thing that splits them.

Pick by the language you know and by what you want to build. TypeScript and Python are easier to start with, and far more people write them. Rust takes longer to learn. In return it checks your code hard before it runs, which suits a service that must stay up for months. It also sits well next to Solana programs, which are written in Rust.

Rig also competes with AI code libraries that have no token at all. St. Jude and Neon are not crypto firms, and they use Rig as a plain Rust library. If the library is all you need, you can weigh Rig against any other AI toolkit and leave ARC out of it.

On Solana, arc.fun names SendAI as a partner. The same list includes Solana, Arbitrum, Abstract, Hyperbolic, Eternal AI, Shuttle and MongoDB.

Who built arc? Playgrounds and the team

arc and Rig are built by a company called Playgrounds Analytics Inc. The litepaper calls Playgrounds "the team and commercial engine behind both Rig and the Arc ecosystem". Jephthah Akene, known online as Tachi, is the chief executive and wrote the litepaper. Christophe Vauclair is the chief technology officer. Thierry Bleau is a co-founder.

Playgrounds built tools for blockchain data before it turned to AI agents. The ARC token came later, on 10 December 2024.

The team uses real names, which is rare for a token that began on pump.fun. The best place to judge the work is the Rig page on GitHub, under the 0xPlaygrounds account. Its list of releases shows what shipped and when.