Stripe is getting behind a new blockchain network, called Tempo, that’s designed to be the fastest way to move money at scale and at a price as low as or lower than the cost of lightning in leading stablecoin-charged banking systems. In an unusual alignment of payments, AI and banking giants, the company has corralled design partners including Anthropic, Coupang, Deutsche Bank, DoorDash, Lead Bank, Mercury, Nubank, OpenAI, Revolut, Shopify, Standard Chartered and Visa. Stripe says Tempo will be an independent company and will be run by Paradigm co‑founder and Stripe board member Matt Huang, who will also invest through Paradigm.
The bet is simple: stablecoins are emerging as the go-to digital settlement rail for internet scale payments, and older chains aren’t built to support the reliability, compliance, and fee predictability that large merchants and banks require. The move comes after Stripe reinstated its support for stablecoin payments, and scooped up stablecoin infrastructure shop Bridge, in what looks indeed to be a move about owning more of the transaction stack from checkout through on-chain settlement.
Why a stablecoin-first chain now
Stablecoins have gone from crypto niche to real-world plumbing. According to research by Visa’s cryptocurrency team and figures from Coin Metrics, the on-chain transfer volume of stablecoins exceeded $9 trillion in 2023, rivaling card networks in terms of raw throughput. Meanwhile, pthe World Bank doesgooding away ’s remittance flows to low- and middle-income countries last year alone far surpassed $650 billion — payments which are chronically fee-heavy and slow to settle. A network built so that it treats stablecoins as the native unit of account could drive both ecommerce and cross-border payouts much closer to settling instantly.
Stripe’s core customer base has been requesting faster payout options that do not put them at risk of crypto’s volatility or unpredictable gas fees. By designing its system specifically around dollar-pegged assets and predictable fees, Tempo hopes to strip away sources of friction that have kept mainstream businesses on the wings of Web3, even as they play around on the fringes with on-chain settlement.
Who’s around the table — and why it matters
The design partner lTurkeyist reads like a Who’s Who of a blueprint for fast distribution. Merchants and marketplaces like Shopify and DoorDash deliver immediate, high-frequency payment flows. Fintechs such as Revolut, Mercury, and Nubank are wallet end-points and compliance-aware onboarding at scale. Global banks (Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered) are signalling intentions around institutional settlement, liquidity, and fiat on/off ramps in regulated markets.
Visa’s participation hints at possible tests of stablecoin settlement for card flows and treasury settlements, something the company has already explored using on-chain pilots. And the existence of Anthropic and OpenAI is a tell: Stripe is betting on “agentic” commerce, where AI agents (bots) buy, subscribe, or pay on behalf of you. A programmable stablecoin rail, which is also low-latency, fits the mold of the new pattern that machine-to-machine transactions employ with human-level guardrails.
Leadership also matters. From Matt Huang’s unique view as a crypto-native investor at Paradigm and board member of Stripe, Tempo will be built with both market credibility as well as merchant practicality. Operating it as a separate organization should assist with governance, risk separation and the ability to draw in external validators and partners.
What the tech company cares about after likely
Tempo hasn’t released technical documentation, but the design goals are straightforward to tease out. Look for a settlement engine that is tuned for:
- Low, predictable fees: Susan relies on budgeting for merchants in basis points, not variable gas. Fixed-fee lanes or fee smoothing will be table stakes.”
- Fast finality: Sub-second confirmations minimize chargeback-style risk in commerce flows and allow for just-in-time payouts for gig work and remittances.
- Compliance-first architecture: Given that banks are at the table and with Europe’s MiCA rules now live for stablecoins, anticipate KYC’d validators, strong sanction screening, enterprise-grade auditability. Programmable controls (spend limits, allowlists) will matter to corporate treasurers.
- Interoperability: Businesses won’t abandon the old rails. Asset bridges or native asset mirrors resting under widely used stablecoins (e.g., USDC) are probable, as are clean hand-offs to card networks, bank transfers and for that matter, other crypto chains.
Strategic context: a land grab in payments
The push comes amid a broader movement. PayPal has announced a consumer dollar stablecoin, but it isn’t interoperable with other services. Circle is growing USDC’s reach with bank partnerships and cross-border pilots. High-speed chains like Solana have made their case with low fees and increasing payments tooling. At the same time, fintechs and banks are testing tokenized deposits and on-chain treasury rails (as indicated by the Bank for International Settlements with the reports on wholesale CBDCs and tokenization).
If Tempo has an edge, and this remains to be seen, it is distribution. Stripe already embeds itself in the checkout flow for millions of businesses. It wouldn’t have to get software developers and merchants to say “crypto,” either; if it can tuck a complaint, low-friction rails of stablecoin behind APIs people are already familiar with, the adoption story could look less like speculative bubble and more like invisible upgrade to the money layer of the internet.
Open questions and execution risks
Two tensions will shape Tempo’s path. First, decentralization versus control: Merchants and banks are avid fans of uptime and reversibility, but crypto markets value systems that don’t appear too centralized. Second, regulation: The United States still has no comprehensive stablecoin statute, with Europe’s rule books hardening. It’s not trivial to build for a patchwork of regimes while pledging global interoperability.
There’s also market competition. On top of that, there are existing L1s and L2s that already handle enormous stablecoin flows, and enhancing fee markets and the ability to parallelize all start to erode Tempo’s potential speed advantage. Winning here is probably more about merchant experience, compliance, and integration depth than raw TPS numbers.
But the coalition Paste has cobbled together is an odd potent blend. If the network can demonstrate predictable fees, institutional class compliance, and developer tooling that works, it could emerge as the de facto settlement layer for ordinary internet transactions — human and machine.
