Stripe and Paradigm’s joint blockchain project, Tempo, has launched its first public testnet. This launch represents a significant advancement toward the official release of the layer-1 blockchain.
According to an announcement made by Tempo on Tuesday, the open-source testnet is now live. This allows anyone to run a node, sync the chain, and test a variety of features. Tempo stated, "Today’s testnet launch kicks off the next phase of Tempo’s development, with a focus on scale, reliability, and integration experience. Over the coming months, we’ll continue onboarding new infrastructure partners, adding new features and developer tooling, and stress-testing throughput under real payment loads."
The announcement detailed six key features currently active on the network. These include: dedicated payment lanes, stablecoin-native gas, a built-in stable asset decentralized exchange, payments and transfers metadata, fast deterministic finality, and modern wallet signing methods. Tempo explained, "Tempo is built to deliver instant, deterministic settlement, predictably low fees, and a stablecoin-native experience, which are qualities that most general-purpose blockchains still struggle to provide for financial applications."
In an X post following the launch, Paradigm general partner and chief technology officer Georgios Konstantopoulos highlighted a feature that permits Tempo testnet users to create stablecoins directly from their browsers. Stablecoins created on the network will be built using Tempo’s TIP-20 token standard. However, the specific liquidity and collateral requirements for the official blockchain launch are not explicitly detailed in the testnet documentation.
Tempo Shows Strong Momentum as Design Partners Grow
The testnet launch arrives four months after Stripe and Paradigm initially unveiled Tempo. This follows three months after Tempo successfully raised $500 million at a $5 billion valuation. The project commenced with notable design partners, including OpenAI, Deutsche Bank, Standard Chartered, and Shopify.
In its latest announcement, Tempo emphasized the addition of numerous new design partners. These include prominent entities such as Mastercard, UBS, Kalshi, and Klarna.
Late last month, Klarna, the EU-licensed buy-now-pay-later firm, launched a USD-pegged stablecoin on Tempo. This made Klarna the first digital bank on the network to achieve this milestone.