Morning Minute: Stripe’s L1 Blockchain ‘Tempo’ Goes Live (Sort Of)

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors mostly even; BTC leads at $112,300 ahead of ‘Corn Moon’
• WLFI blacklists Justin Sun’s tokens for terms violations
• Stripe introduces payments-focused ‘Tempo’ blockchain live in testnet
• New SEC releases pro-crypto agenda while Gary Gensler’s 2022-2023 texts are “lost”
• Myriad drops 2 UX enhancements, teases TGE for first time

💸 Tempo Is Live (Sorta): Stripe + Paradigm’s Payments L1

The big players are coming into crypto.

And they’re accelerating.

📌 What Happened

Yesterday, Stripe and Paradigm announced Tempo, now in private testnet.

They have a heavy-hitting roster of design partners, including Visa, Deutsche Bank, Shopify, Nubank, OpenAI, Revolut and more.

The chain is purpose-built for stablecoin payments, targeting 100k+ TPS with sub-second finality, EVM compatibility (built on Reth) and a model that lets fees be paid in any stablecoin via an enshrined AMM.

So what’s it for?

The target use cases are global payouts, payroll, remittances, micro-transactions, tokenized deposits (24/7 settlement), embedded accounts, and even agentic payments.

🗣️ What They’re Saying

“We hope that Tempo makes it easier for things like payment acceptance, global payouts, remittances, microtransactions, tokenized deposits, agentic payments … to move onchain.” – Patrick Collison, Stripe CEO

“We’re building Tempo with principles of decentralization and neutrality… launch with a diverse set of validators, transition to a permissionless model.” – Matt Huang, Paradigm

🧠 Why It Matters

There’s a reason why so many big players are building stablecoin products and infrastructure.

Fees are lower for on-chain payments.

For a $100 item, a standard credit card fee would be $3.20. If purchased via stablecoins, fees would be $0.50 or much lower – a huge spread.

That’s the opportunity that Stripe sees, and they’re clearly moving quickly.

Their advantage here is their purpose-built chain (along with their laundry list of launch partners and beta testers).

Many of today’s big chains were optimized for trading, while Tempo optimizes for payments, the largest real-world use case for crypto.

If it works, on-chain dollars become the default rail for payouts and commerce.

And that’s a boon for the broader crypto space. More stablecoins grow the overall crypto pie and bring more users on-chain.

But it doesn’t necessarily mean your favorite L1 blockchain’s token is going to go up in price…

🌎 Macro Crypto and Memes

A few Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

• Crypto majors are mostly even with BTC leading; BTC +1% at $112,300, ETH even at $4,420, XRP even at $2.84, SOL -1% at $207
• M (+26%), PUMP (+10%) and XDC (+5%) led top movers
• The Bitcoin ETFs saw $220M in net outflows on Thursday, breaking a big 2-day inflow streak; the ETH ETFs saw $167M in net outflows
• The SEC set a pro-crypto agenda, unveiling rulemakings to define digital-asset offers/sales and ease listings on U.S. exchanges
• Stripe + Paradigm revealed their Tempo blockchain aimed at low-cost stablecoin settlement with partners including Visa, Deutsche Bank, OpenAI
• Kraken announced a buyout of Breakout, planning to integrate the trader-native platform into Kraken Pro
• WLFI blacklisted Justin Sun‘s address from selling his 595M unlocked tokens, citing activity concerns that broke WLFI rules (WLFI +15% since the news)
• Gary Gensler’s text messages from Oct 2022 to Sept 2023 have been “lost” according to a recent audit

In Corporate Treasuries

In Memes

• Memecoin leaders are slightly green on the day; DOGE +1%, Shiba +1%, PEPE +1%, PENGU -1%, BONK +2%, TRUMP +1%, SPX +4%, and FARTCOIN -1%
• NEET (+20%), BITTY (+30%), SPARK (+15%) and TOKABU (+13%) led onchain movers

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Here’s a rundown of major token, protocol and airdrop news from the day:

• Pump Fun did another $12M in buybacks over the past week, representing 98% of their revenue
• Myriad announced two new UX enhancements, including direct sign-in w/ MetaMask, Rabby & Rainbow wallets and easier bridging directly within Myriad, along with confirmation that USDC predictions will “be considered at TGE”
• Arbitrum launched DRIP, its $40M DeFi incentive program, targeting leveraged looping with 24M ARB in rewards
• Fireblocks launched a stablecoin payments network, connecting 40+ participants to streamline B2B stablecoin flows

🤖 AI x Crypto

Section dedicated to headlines in the AI sector of crypto:

• Overall market cap even at $12.7B, leaders were mixed
• FARTCOIN (-1%), VIRTUAL (+1%), TIBBIR (+5%), aixbt (+3%) & ai16z (+1%)
• VADER (+33%) and VIRGEN (+22%) led top movers

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:

• ETH NFT leaders were mixed; Punks +2% at 48.9 ETH, Pudgy -1% at 9.8, BAYC -1% at 9.1 ETH
• HV-MTL up 230% were a notable top mover
• Abstract NFTs were mostly red, led by Roach Racing (+7%)
• Pudgy Penguins announced that OpenSea will be its official home, along with the PENGU token
• The Pudgy Party soulbound token can now be claimed inside MetaMask portfolio
• NFL All Day revamped its collector experience, rolling out verified digital autographed rookie highlight moments and partnering with four NFL teams on in-person activations to onboard more fans