The debate over single-use blockchains: Is Tempo a true blockchain?

Author: Byron Gilliam; Compiler: Saoirse, Foresight News

Editor's Note: On October 18, 2025, Fortune reported that Tempo, a payments-focused blockchain project developed by Stripe and blockchain venture capital firm Paradigm, completed a $500 million Series A financing round. Venture capital giant Greenoaks and Joshua Kushner's Thrive Capital led the investment, valuing Tempo at $5 billion. A person familiar with the matter revealed that Sequoia Capital, Ribbit Capital, and Ron Conway's SV Angel also participated in this round of financing. Paradigm and Stripe did not participate in this round of financing. "No one goes out of their way to buy a Swiss Army knife; it's usually a Christmas gift." - Jensen Huang. Great companies start out more like "scalpels" than "Swiss Army knives." Companies that focus on a single area are more likely to achieve excellence in that field and retain their core value clearly in their users. Take the internet companies of 1999 as an example: Yahoo's homepage encompassed search, auctions, news, email, and instant messaging, yet its performance in each area was mediocre. Google's homepage, on the other hand, focused solely on search, making its positioning immediately clear to users and ultimately establishing Google as the undisputed leader in search. Today, "Google" has become synonymous with "search," while Yahoo is left with niche features like hosted fantasy baseball leagues—a testament to the business principle that "excellence in one thing is far superior to mediocrity in many." So, does this logic also apply to blockchain? Current Situation: Parallel Development of Two Blockchain Models. Bitcoin is a single-purpose blockchain whose sole function is to transfer Bitcoin. This simplicity may be the primary reason for its enormous success. However, Ethereum and Solana are general-purpose blockchains, and they have also achieved some success. Moreover, the two models do not appear to be cannibalizing each other: Bitcoin has yet to achieve a breakthrough in DeFi, and Ethereum has never become a mainstream currency. Perhaps the two models can coexist peacefully? It's probably too early to tell, as general-purpose blockchains will soon face a new, single-purpose competitor.

New variable: Tempo

Last week, payment giant Stripe and investment institution Paradigm jointly announced that they will develop a blockchain Tempo focusing on stablecoins. As soon as this new chain was exposed, it was regarded by the industry as a "potential winner in the field of crypto payments." Its core advantages just hit the pain points of general-purpose blockchains: Predictable fees: settled in stablecoins, no need to hold native tokens Fast confirmation: achieve "near-instant" transaction final confirmation Privacy and compliance: support "optional" privacy protection and compliance functions Dedicated payment channel: set up an independent "channel" to avoid congestion with other businesses High throughput: optimized for payment scenarios, processing efficiency far exceeds that of general-purpose chains Matt Huang, responsible for Tempo development He stated, "Focusing on a single area allows the chain to iterate faster. We urgently need to meet upcoming market demands while reducing our reliance on other ecosystems (such as Ethereum's L1). This indirect challenge to Ethereum leads one to speculate that Tempo's ambitions may extend beyond payments. More notably, Matt Huang mentioned, "Although Tempo started as a 'permissioned validator node,' it has been permissionless from day one and will gradually advance decentralization." A blockchain that's both decentralized and proficient in payments sounds remarkably consistent with the ideal general-purpose blockchain. Will Tempo become an all-around rival to Ethereum and Solana? Controversy: The "Expansion Paradox" of Single-Purpose Chains From a business perspective, the success of "focusing on one thing first and then expanding to many" is not uncommon: Microsoft started with the BASIC programming language and gradually expanded into operating systems, office software, and cloud computing; Amazon began as an online bookstore and grew into an e-commerce giant covering all categories; Apple started with personal computers and has now built an ecosystem encompassing "mobile phones + computers + wearable devices." If Tempo can first establish a foothold in the payment field, it may be able to replicate this "horizontal expansion" path and become a more comprehensive blockchain than Ethereum. However, there are also counterexamples: In the past, dedicated calculators far surpassed general-purpose computers in terms of computational speed, but who would buy a calculator these days? Far more people have Swiss Army knives in their drawers than Texas Instruments calculators. This means that if general-purpose technologies are continuously optimized, they may gradually make single-purpose technologies obsolete. So, will general-purpose blockchains eventually render "payment-specific blockchains" worthless? Industry opinions are sharply divided: Max Resnick is optimistic about general-purpose blockchains: "Decentralized blockchains will ultimately surpass centralized systems, including single-purpose chains, in speed, scale, reliability, and even compliance." Mert Mumtaz questions Tempo's positioning: "It's not even a blockchain, let alone a general-purpose blockchain—how can there be a 'payment-only' blockchain?" In his view, decentralization is the core attribute of a blockchain, and a truly decentralized blockchain must possess general-purpose capabilities. If Tempo promotes decentralization, it will inevitably attract meaningless projects like "junk coins," leading to congestion in payment functions and degraded performance. Mert Mumtaz further pointed out that there are only two viable paths for a "payment-only chain": either "non-Turing complete" like Bitcoin (supporting only transfers and unable to run complex code), or adopting a "permissioned" system (with nodes controlled by a centralized organization). If this were true, Ethereum and Solana wouldn't have to worry about being replaced by Tempo—after all, Tempo is either "functionally limited" or "not decentralized enough." But the key question is: if Tempo can provide faster and cheaper payment services without being decentralized and become the primary stablecoin circulation scenario, will users still care whether it's a true blockchain? Conclusion: A Test of the Value of Decentralization Rather than calling this a competition between single-purpose and general-purpose chains, it's more a test of the value of decentralization: How much are users willing to pay for decentralization? Are they willing to accept slightly slower speeds and higher fees in exchange for the decentralized nature of blockchain? Or do they prefer efficient, low-cost services, even if they're less decentralized? The emergence of Tempo may be the touchstone of this test.