Written by: Byron Gilliam
Translated by Saoirse, Foresight News
Editor’s note: On October 18, 2025, according to Fortune, Tempo, a payment-focused blockchain project developed by Stripe and blockchain venture capital firm Paradigm, completed a $500 million Series A funding round led by venture capital giant Greenoaks and Joshua Kushner’s Thrive Capital. This funding values Tempo at $5 billion. A source familiar with the matter revealed that Sequoia Capital, Ribbit Capital, and Ron Conway’s SV Angel also participated in this round. Paradigm and Stripe did not participate in this funding round.
“No one goes out of their way to buy a Swiss Army knife; it’s usually a Christmas gift.” — Jensen Huang
Great enterprises start off more like a “scalpel” rather than a “Swiss Army knife.” Companies that focus on a single area can achieve excellence in that field, making it easier for users to clearly remember their core value.
Take internet companies from 1999 as an example: Yahoo’s homepage encompassed features such as search, auctions, news, email, and instant messaging, yet performed mediocrely in each area; whereas Google’s homepage focused solely on search functionality, not only making it easy for users to understand its positioning at a glance but also helping Google become the absolute leader in the search field. Today, “Google” has become synonymous with “search,” while Yahoo is left with niche functionalities such as hosting fantasy baseball leagues — this underscores the business logic that “mastering one thing far exceeds being mediocre at many.”
So, does this logic apply equally to blockchain?
Current Situation: “Parallel Development” of Two Blockchain Models
Bitcoin is a blockchain focused on a single purpose, which is to transfer Bitcoin. Its simplicity may be the primary reason for its tremendous success.
However, Ethereum and Solana are categorized as general-purpose blockchains, and they have also achieved a certain level of success.
Moreover, these two models do not seem to erode each other: Bitcoin has yet to make breakthroughs in the DeFi space, and Ethereum has never become a mainstream currency.
Given this situation, perhaps both models can coexist peacefully?
It may still be too early to draw conclusions, as general-purpose blockchains are soon to face a new competitor focused on a specific domain.
New Variable: Tempo
Last week, payment giant Stripe and investment firm Paradigm jointly announced the development of a blockchain focused on stablecoins, named Tempo. This new chain, upon its unveiling, has been regarded within the industry as a potential winner in the field of crypto payments, with its core advantage precisely addressing the pain points of general-purpose blockchains:
- Predictable costs: Settlements in stablecoins, eliminating the need to hold native tokens.
- Fast confirmation speed: achieving “near-instant” transaction finality.
- Balancing privacy and compliance: supporting “optional” privacy protection and compliance features.
- Dedicated payment channel: establishing an independent “channel” to avoid congestion with other services.
- High throughput: optimized specifically for payment scenarios, with processing efficiency far exceeding that of general-purpose chains.
Matt Huang, responsible for the development of Tempo, stated: “Focusing on a single domain allows the chain to iterate faster; we urgently need to meet the upcoming market demands while reducing dependency on other ecosystems (like Ethereum L1).”
This “indirect challenge” to Ethereum raises speculation about Tempo’s ambitions potentially extending beyond just “payments.”
Notably, Matt Huang mentioned: “Although Tempo started with ‘permissioned validator nodes’, it has possessed ‘permissionless’ attributes from day one and will gradually advance towards decentralization.”
A blockchain that is “both decentralized and proficient in payments” seems to align closely with the concept of an “ideal universal blockchain.” Will Tempo become a “versatile competitor” to Ethereum and Solana?
Controversy: The “Expansion Paradox” of Single-Use Chains
From a business perspective, there are numerous successful cases of “first specializing then expanding”: 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 a comprehensive e-commerce giant; Apple entered the market with personal computers and has now built an ecological empire of “phones + computers + wearable devices.” If Tempo can first establish a foothold in the payment sector, it may also replicate this “horizontal expansion” path and become a more comprehensive blockchain than Ethereum.
However, counterexamples also exist: In the past, dedicated calculators far surpassed general-purpose computers in speed, but today, who would specifically buy a calculator? There are far more people with Swiss Army knives in their drawers than those with Texas Instruments calculators. This implies that if general-purpose technology continues to optimize, it may gradually lead to the obsolescence of single-use technology. Therefore, will general-purpose blockchains in the future render “payment-specific chains” worthless?
There are also evident divergences in industry perspectives:
Max Resnick is optimistic about general-purpose blockchains: “Decentralized blockchains will ultimately surpass centralized systems in speed, scalability, reliability, and even compliance, including single-use chains.”
Mert Mumtaz questioned Tempo’s positioning: “It can hardly be considered a blockchain, let alone a general-purpose blockchain — since when is there a blockchain that ‘only handles payments’?” In his view, “decentralization” is the core attribute of a blockchain, and a truly decentralized blockchain inevitably possesses “general-purpose capabilities.” If Tempo pushes for decentralization, it will inevitably attract meaningless projects like ‘junk coins,’ leading to congestion in payment functions and reduced performance.
Mert Mumtaz further pointed out that there are only two feasible paths for a ‘payment-specific chain’: either it is ‘non-Turing complete’ like Bitcoin (supporting only transfers and incapable of running complex code), or it adopts a ‘permissioned system’ (with node control by a centralized institution). If this is the case, Ethereum and Solana need not worry about being replaced by Tempo — after all, Tempo would either be ‘functionally limited’ or ‘not sufficiently decentralized.’
But the crux of the matter lies in whether, if Tempo can provide faster and cheaper payment services without decentralization, and become a primary circulation scenario for stablecoins, users will still care about whether it “counts as a true blockchain?”
Conclusion: A Test of “Decentralized Value”
Rather than viewing this as a “competition between single-purpose chains and general-purpose chains,” it is more accurately described as a test of “decentralized value”: how much cost are users willing to incur for “decentralization”? Are they willing to accept slightly slower speeds and higher fees in exchange for the decentralized attributes of blockchain, or do they prefer efficient, low-cost services even if they lack sufficient decentralization?
The emergence of Tempo may very well be the “touchstone” for this test.
