Tempo, a payments-focused blockchain incubated by Stripe and Paradigm, has launched its public testnet. The protocol, which raised $500 million in a Series A round led by Thrive Capital and Greenoaks in October, is valued at roughly $5 billion. It is designed as an Ethereum-compatible Layer 1 blockchain optimized for high-throughput payments and settlement.
The launch marks the start of a live trial, allowing any company to build real-world stablecoin payment applications on the network. Tempo aims to provide "instant, deterministic settlement, predictably low fees, and a stablecoin-native experience," qualities that general-purpose blockchains often lack for financial applications. The network charges a fixed fee of one-tenth of a cent per payment, a stark contrast to traditional card fees of 1-3% plus a flat fee.
A key innovation is Tempo's dedicated payment track, which isolates payment traffic from other on-chain activity like trading and memecoin launches. This design prevents network congestion from one sector from disrupting critical payments, such as payroll or vendor transfers. Stripe's President of Technology and Business, William Gaybrick, cited past incidents where memecoin launches caused payroll processors using stablecoins to fail.
The project has attracted significant partners, including OpenAI, Shopify, Visa, Anthropic, Deutsche Bank, UBS, Cross River Bank, and prediction markets platform Kalshi. In a notable development, Klarna has already launched KlarnaUSD, a USD-backed stablecoin issued on Tempo, with a mainnet launch slated for 2026.
Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang stated the goal is to close the developer experience gap for those building real-world stablecoin use cases. The launch comes amid growing stablecoin adoption, with Citigroup estimating the market could reach $3.7 trillion by 2030 under favorable conditions, though it remains heavily tied to crypto trading rather than general payments.
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