Frequently asked questions about Tempo

Tempo is a payments-first Layer 1 blockchain incubated by Stripe and Paradigm, purpose-built for stablecoin payments at scale. It gives businesses and developers a stablecoin-native settlement layer for global payments, including cross-border payments, global payouts, embedded finance, and machine-to-machine payments. Tempo provides high throughput, near-instant onchain settlement, and sub-cent fees for standard stablecoin transfers.

Source: About Tempo

Tempo was incubated by Stripe and Paradigm. Stripe's experience in global payments helped shape Tempo's design for stablecoin payments, while Paradigm contributed crypto and blockchain engineering expertise.

Source: Introducing Tempo

Tempo was incubated by Stripe and Paradigm. Paradigm contributed crypto and blockchain engineering expertise that helped shape Tempo's stablecoin-focused architecture.

Source: Introducing Tempo

The Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) is an open standard for machine-to-machine payments co-authored by Stripe and Tempo. It lets agents, apps, and people pay for services inline with an HTTP request, without requiring advance setup of API keys or billing accounts. MPP is payment-method agnostic and supports stablecoins, cards, and other payment methods.

Source: About MPP

MPP is payment-method agnostic and is not limited to Tempo. Tempo provides one settlement option for MPP stablecoin payments. Tempo's high throughput, dedicated payment lanes, near-instant onchain settlement, and sub-cent fees make it well suited for machine payments.

Source: Tempo payment method

Tempo is continuously expanding its active validator set on a path towards permissionless validation. Current validators include MoneyGram, Stripe, Visa, and Zodia Custody by Standard Chartered. The Tempo node software is open source under the Apache 2.0 license.

Sources: MoneyGram validator, Tempo validators, Run a validator

Tempo is a fully EVM-compatible Layer 1 built with the Reth SDK. Developers can deploy Solidity contracts with familiar tools including Foundry and Hardhat. Tempo Mainnet is live. It provides near-instant onchain settlement with no re-orgs, and network fees are paid in supported USD-denominated stablecoins rather than a volatile native gas token. Standard stablecoin transfers have sub-cent fees.

Sources: EVM compatibility, Tempo fees

Tempo was designed with input from fintechs, banks, and commerce platforms, including Visa, Deutsche Bank, Mastercard, Shopify, Nubank, and Revolut. Stripe, Visa, and Zodia Custody by Standard Chartered are validators on the network. Separately, MPP was co-authored by Stripe and Tempo.

Source: Tempo Mainnet

Tempo is led by founder and CEO Matt Huang, who is also co-founder and managing partner at Paradigm.

Source: Matt Huang at Paradigm