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The fintech giant Stripe is developing a new blockchain, according to a recent job posting on a site for the crypto lobby group Blockchain Association. “Tempo is a high-performance, payments-focused blockchain,” reads the job advertisement, which is for a product marketing position and dated August 3.
The posting goes on to say that Tempo is in stealth, has a team of five, and is being built in partnership with Paradigm—a crypto venture capital firm whose cofounder and managing partner, Matt Huang, is on the board of Stripe. Applicants for the marketing position should have “experience marketing to a Fortune 500 audience,” per the ad.
The blockchain is a layer 1, or not built on top of other protocols, and it’s compatible with the coding language used on the blockchain Ethereum, according to four sources briefed on the matter. All sources requested anonymity to talk about private business conversations.
Spokespeople for Stripe and Paradigm declined to comment.
Tempo is the latest bet on crypto from Stripe, which has grown to an almost $92 billion valuation on the back of payment products like easy online checkout and automated invoicing for businesses.
In October, Stripe announced it was paying $1.1 billion for the stablecoin infrastructure firm Bridge, its largest acquisition to date. And in June, the payments titan said it bought the crypto wallet developer Privy. (It didn’t disclose the price.)
Stripe’s crypto shopping spree comes amid a rush of interest in stablecoins, or cryptocurrencies pegged to underlying assets like the U.S. dollar. Boosters say the crypto assets are a more effective payment technology than legacy financial infrastructure like SWIFT or wires. They also argue that the technology can reduce cross-border payment costs as well as cut down on transaction fees, among other benefits.
Although stablecoins have existed for more than a decade, broader interest in the technology has picked up steam over the past year, especially after President Donald Trump signed the GENIUS Act into law in July. The bill outlines federal regulatory guidance and rules for the burgeoning sector of crypto.
Stablecoins have become such a buzzy subject in the world of payments that even Big Tech giants like Meta, Apple, and Airbnb are exploring stablecoin integrations—but Stripe is leading the charge. “We are now seeing meaningful business interest in stablecoins as the underlying technology has matured,” Patrick Collison, founder and CEO of Stripe, said in testimony to the House in March.
Stripe’s acquisitions of Bridge gives the fintech ownership of a platform for stablecoin APIs and issuance, or the creation of the cryptocurrency. And its purchase of Privy gives it stablecoin wallets, or where users can store the tokens. A new blockchain would allow it to control another layer in the stablecoin tech stack—the servers that process stablecoin transactions.
Stripe hasn’t publicly stated its reasons for building a blockchain . It also hasn’t said it intends to issue a cryptocurrency to support it—a common move for founders of a new crypto protocol.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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