Stripe and Paradigm’s joint blockchain venture Tempo has pushed its first public testnet live, marking a key milestone on the road to launching its own layer 1 chain. The open source network is now available for anyone who wants to run a node, sync the chain or try out the early feature set.
Tempo announced on Tuesday that the testnet begins a new phase in its build out, with an emphasis on scale, reliability and smooth integration for developers and payment firms.
Testnet Ships Core Payment Features
Tempo outlined six features that are already active on the network. These include dedicated payment lanes, stablecoin based gas fees, a built in stable asset decentralized exchange, support for payments and transfers metadata, fast deterministic finality and updated wallet signing methods.
The team stated the chain is designed for instant settlement and steady low fees, two points that many general purpose chains still struggle with in payment use cases.
Paradigm general partner and chief technology officer Georgios Konstantopoulos also pointed out one early feature in a post on X. Users can create stablecoins straight from their browsers on the testnet, built on Tempo’s TIP 20 token standard. The project has not yet listed final liquidity or collateral rules for stablecoins when the mainnet launches. Those details are expected later as Tempo continues to refine its economic design.
Stripe and Paradigm Expand Partner Roster
The testnet launch lands four months after Stripe and Paradigm first revealed Tempo, and three months after the project raised $500 million at a $5 billion valuation. Early design partners included OpenAI, Deutsche Bank, Standard Chartered and Shopify. The blockchain project stated in its latest update that it has added several more big names, including Mastercard, UBS, Kalshi and Klarna.
Klarna has already taken the next step. The EU licensed buy now pay later giant issued a USD pegged stablecoin on Tempo late last month. Tempo said it plans to keep onboarding more partners over the coming months while adding new tools and stress testing the chain with real payment loads.
The public testnet marks Tempo’s first major moment in the open. With more partners joining and development now out in the wild, the coming months will show how the network handles scale as it moves closer to a full mainnet release.