The deal values the upcoming payments-focused blockchain at $5 billion.
Tempo, a payments-focused blockchain developed by Stripe and Paradigm, has raised $500 million in a Series A round led by Joshua Kushner’s Thrive Capital and Greenoaks.
The funding round values Tempo at $5 billion, according to Fortune, making it one of the largest blockchain venture rounds in recent years.
Sequoia, Ribbit Capital, and Ron Conway’s SV Angel also participated in the financing. Fortune revealed that Paradigm and Stripe did not contribute capital to the round.
The large $500 million funding round highlights growing institutional confidence in stablecoins and corporate-backed blockchains. The total stablecoin sector is currently valued at about $307 billion, with Tether’s USDT boasting a $181 billion market cap and 59% market share.
Tempo’s funding also reflects a broader trend of major venture investors backing crypto technology for global payments. This comes as a recent Visa report found that stablecoins are expanding beyond payments and trading, with more than $670 billion in loans issued through on-chain lending platforms over the past five years.
Ryne Saxe, CEO and co-founder of Eco, a liquidity layer for stablecoins, emphasized that the market is moving fast and the stakes are enormous.
“Hundreds of millions positioning for a stablecoin standards war. Billions in valuation before launch. Hundreds of billions in circulation. Tens of trillions in settlement volume,” Saxe said. “It’s no longer a question of if stablecoins will underpin global finance, but how fast the transition happens, and which networks become the default rails for money movement in the years and decades to come.”
New Leadership
Tempo is also adding new crypto talent to its team. Dankrad Feist, a longtime Ethereum researcher, announced on X earlier today that he will be joining the startup.
Feist said he sees a “special opportunity” to bring stablecoin payments to the mainstream and praised Tempo’s approach, which he said aligns with Ethereum’s “permissionless ideals” while pushing the boundaries on scale and speed.
He added that Tempo’s open-source technology could integrate back into Ethereum, “benefiting the entire ecosystem.”
“Ethereum has a strong set of values and technical choices that make it unique in the world,” Feist said on X. “And Tempo will be a great complement…”
