Stripe, the $92 billion fintech giant known for its payment solutions, is venturing into the blockchain world with its own high-performance, payments-focused blockchain called Tempo. The company is working on the project with crypto venture capital firm Paradigm, and the initiative represents a big step for Stripe. This announcement continues Stripe’s recent history of diving into the crypto world. In October, they purchased infrastructure firm Bridge for $1.1 billion and purchased crypto wallet developer Privy in June.
Tempo is being designed as a layer 1 blockchain, so it’s not an ecosystem that’s built on top of other protocols. It is largely due to its alignment with the coding language widely adopted on the Ethereum blockchain. Matt Huang, cofounder and managing partner at Paradigm, is on Stripe’s board. This relationship emphasizes the tactical partnership between both companies.
Stripe’s interest in blockchain technology is seen by the large team of five employees working on Tempo exclusively, indicating a significant interest in integrating this technology. On August 3, a job posting for a new position at Tempo appeared—product marketing manager. This announcement is indicative of the company’s energetic hiring spree for the project.
The job advertisement stated that "Tempo is a high-performance, payments-focused blockchain."
The fact that the job posting was later pulled down after Fortune reached out to Stripe and Paradigm for comment on it indicates a purposeful plan.
"We are now seeing meaningful business interest in stablecoins as the underlying technology has matured." - Patrick Collison, Stripe CEO
Collison's statement highlights the growing importance of stablecoins in the business world and Stripe's intention to capitalize on this trend.
