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Payments giant Stripe and Paradigm-backed Tempo activated its public testnet on December 9, 2025, inviting developers to test a Layer 1 blockchain optimized for sub-second stablecoin settlements and real-time fraud monitoring, positioning it as a compliant alternative to high-fee networks like Ethereum for global remittances.
Tempo’s testnet is live!
Any company can now build on a payments-first chain designed for instant settlement, predictable fees, and a stablecoin-native experience.
Tempo has been shaped with a wide group of partners validating real workloads including @AnthropicAI, @Coupang,… pic.twitter.com/tHcjuBRGZb
— tempo (@tempo) December 9, 2025
Tempo, led by Paradigm’s co-founder and current Stripe board member, Matt Huang, uses a novel “Hexagate” system, which is integrated with Chainalysis for on-chain transaction screening, to enable instant, low-cost USDC and USDT transfers while flagging illicit activity before finality. The testnet supports EVM-compatible smart contracts with 100,000 TPS potential, targeting B2B payments where current rails like SWIFT take days and cost 3-5%. Early integrations include Circle’s USDC and Tether’s USDT as native gas tokens, with a mainnet planned for Q1 2026.
The company wrote in the launch announcement: “Today, anyone can start building on Tempo. The network delivers instant, deterministic settlement, predictably low fees, and a stablecoin-native experience, qualities most general-purpose blockchains still struggle to offer for financial applications.”
They added that since unveiling the project in September, the team has rapidly progressed from concept to a working testnet now being validated by major companies. Initial design partners include Anthropic, Coupang, Deutsche Bank, DoorDash, Lead Bank, Mercury, Nubank, OpenAI, Revolut, Shopify, Standard Chartered, and Visa, with recent additions such as Brex, Coastal, Cross River, Deel, Faire, Figure, Gusto, Kalshi, Klarna, Mastercard, Payoneer, Persona, Ramp, and UBS.
Chainalysis called the partnership a “game-changer for compliant on-chain payments,” noting Hexagate’s ability to scan 99% of transactions in under 200ms without halting the chain. Tempo’s $25 million seed round, led by Paradigm in March 2025, drew from a16z crypto and Sequoia, with Stripe providing technical validation after piloting similar tech internally.
Here are the features available for users on the testnet, in full detail:
Tempo reserves blockspace at the protocol level for payment transactions, shielding them from competition with NFT mints, liquidations, or high-frequency calls. This keeps fees low and predictable, targeting one-tenth of a cent per transaction, even during network spikes, eliminating congestion-related “downtime” for processors and ensuring stable economics for high-volume flows.
Users pay fees directly in USD-pegged stablecoins, removing the need for volatile gas tokens. Applications operate entirely in the same currency as their flows, simplifying accounting and eliminating the requirement for wallets or custodians to hold separate native assets just to cover transaction costs.
The network includes a native decentralized exchange optimized for stablecoins and tokenized deposits. It allows fee payments and validator rewards in any USD stablecoin, with automatic on-chain conversions via consolidated liquidity. The DEX also streamlines cross-stablecoin payments and trading.
Every transfer supports structured memo fields for invoice numbers, cost centers, or custom identifiers, enabling seamless reconciliation with existing ERP, TMS, and accounting systems. Larger payloads can reference off-chain data through hashed commitments for privacy while maintaining auditability.
Tempo employs Byzantine fault-tolerant consensus, starting with four validators and planning expansion. Blocks finalize every ~0.5 seconds, with transactions in finalized blocks guaranteed irreversible, delivering settlement certainty comparable to traditional financial systems at blockchain speeds.
Built-in support for gas sponsorship, batched transactions, scheduled payments, and passkey authentication lets developers implement sophisticated payment logic without additional middleware or custom contracts.
Tempo has been in development since its September announcement and closed a $500 million Series A in October 2025 at a $5 billion valuation. Stripe’s extensive participation lends significant credibility and could open doors to the payments giant’s massive network, Stripe handled $1.4 trillion in transaction volume in 2024 for clients including NVIDIA, PepsiCo, and Comcast.
This launch follows a wave of payments-focused L1s like StableChain and Plasma but Tempo’s emphasis on enterprise compliance could attract banks wary of unregulated alternatives.
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