Matthew Sim@operatoruplift

The $3B global freelance market is broken by a massive "Trust Gap." Buyers fear paying for bad work, and sellers fear non-payment. Traditional platforms solve this with slow manual arbitration and rigid 14-day hold periods, stifling economic velocity. ArcWork is the solution: The Economic OS for Agentic Freelancing. We are the first platform where capital, humans, and machine agents coordinate with sub-second finality. By combining Circle's Programmable Wallets with Gemini's multimodal reasoning, we have replaced the "gig economy" friction with programmable, autonomous trust. How It Works: Smart Escrow: The buyer deposits funds into a smart contract on Arc L1 (using native USDC). Multimodal Work Submission: The freelancer submits their work (code, designs, files). Agentic Verification: Our Gemini-powered AI agent analyzes the submission against the original Scope of Work, inspecting text, images, and file contents. Trust-Minimized Release: Success: If the work matches the requirements, the AI triggers the smart contract to instantly release the funds. Risk: If anomalies are found, a "Tactical HUD" alerts the buyer to manually review or request revisions. The Tech Stack: Settlement: Arc L1 for deterministic, low-cost finality. Treasury: Circle Programmable Wallets for secure, developer-controlled fund management. Efficiency: Circle x402 Protocol for "Gasless Validation Credits," allowing freelancers to pre-check their work using AI, off-chain before final submission. Intelligence: Google Gemini 2.5 Flash for high-speed, multimodal semantic understanding of complex deliverables. ArcWork is not just a marketplace; it is a protocol for high-velocity, usage-based services where trust is code.

Join our $1,000,000+ startup challenge series powered by Surge 📌 This announcement outlines the launch of a Global Human+AI Exchange — aligning universities, global cities, talent networks, and industry to accelerate human-centered AI innovation, technology transfer, and economic growth. 👉 Read more here ⏱️ 8 days to turn your idea, or existing product, into an investable demo. 📅 February 6 - 15, 2026 • Feb 6 - 14 (Online Phase) - Collaborate and build online with developers and AI innovators from around the world. All projects must be submitted by the end of the online phase on February 14th. 🕙 Doors open at 10:00 AM, first come, first served. • Feb 14 (On‑site Build Day) - Selected participants will be invited to an exclusive in‑person session to refine their projects and connect directly with mentors. • Feb 15 (On‑site Demos & Awards) - Live pitching sessions to a panel of judges and ecosystem partners, followed by the official winner announcement. 🌟 Get feedback from startup mentors and technical experts. 📍 On-site Venue (Feb 14–15): MindsDB SF AI Collective 3154 17th St, San Francisco, California, USA 📲 Real-time on-site updates (SF) For real-time announcements and information during the on-site portion (Feb 14–15), join the LabLab SF Chapter WhatsApp group: 👉 Join the WhatsApp group 🤝 Join solo or with a team. New founders and existing startups are welcome. 🏆 $1,000,000+ in credits, token prizes, perks and funding opportunity. 📍 On-site participation is by invitation only. Travel and accommodation expenses will not be covered. 🧑‍💻 Apply now to build, validate, and pitch with purpose.

In this hybrid hackathon powered by Arc, developers will build the next generation of agentic commerce systems using Arc with USDC. Explore a world where AI agents and web services can pay for APIs, data, compute, and content in dynamic, usage-based ways, while Arc provides stablecoin-native settlement with predictable USDC fees and deterministic, sub-second finality. This hackathon is supported by Google & Google DeepMind, with a dedicated challenge and $40,000 in Google Cloud Platform (GCP) credits awarded for the best use of Gemini models and Google AI Studio. 📅 January 9 – 24, 2026 • Jan 9 – 23 (Online Phase) – Collaborate and build online with developers and AI innovators from around the world. All projects must be submitted by the end of the online phase on January 23rd. • Jan 23 (On‑site Build Day – San Francisco, CA) – Selected participants will be invited to an exclusive in‑person session to refine their projects and connect directly with mentors. • Jan 24 (On‑site Demos & Awards – San Francisco, CA) – Live pitching sessions to a panel of judges and ecosystem partners, followed by the official winner announcement. Get guidance from Arc and Circle experts through on-site support. 📍 On-site Venue (Jan 23–24): MindsDB SF AI Collective 3154 17th St, San Francisco, California, USA 🤝 Go solo or team up, it's your flow. 🏆Compete for $50,000 in USDC & GCP Credits. 📍 On-site participation is by invitation only. Travel and accommodation expenses will not be covered. 🧑🏻‍💻 Secure your spot now - sign up before the Kick-Off Stream!