New blockchains to compete for stablecoin payments

A race for high-speed blockchains aimed to disrupt cross-border payment is heating up, with the likes of Stripe and Circle in competition.

Recently, payments giant Stripe and crypto investment company Paradigm officially unveiled plans for Tempo, a stablecoin-first blockchain network aimed at handling global payouts, microtransactions, remittances and AI agentic payments.

Tempo, reportedly in private testing, is designed to support real-world financial scale - processing tens of thousands of transactions per second with sub-second finality, Stripe CEO Patrick Collison said in an X post.

Anthropic, Coupang, Deutsche Bank, DoorDash, Lead Bank, Mercury, Nubank, OpenAI, Revolut, Shopify, Standard Chartered and Visa are onboard as initial design partners, he added.

According to Collison, Tempo is expected to allow fees to be paid in stablecoins instead of native tokens and will feature a built-in automated market maker to ensure neutrality across issuers. Built on Reth, an Ethereum execution client, the chain is designed to be Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible.

Chasing a huge opportunity

Recently, stablecoins have moved substantially beyond their origins in trading, becoming a reliable and programmable payment rail. The stablecoin market is currently valued at roughly $270 bln, but it could surpass $1 trn by 2030, market maker Keyrock said in a recent report. “As regulation, liquidity and interoperability mature, [stablecoins] are positioned to capture a meaningful share of cross-border flows,” reads the report.

This creates a significant opportunity, which various companies in finance and crypto are eager to seize. Just a few weeks ago, Circle, the USDC issuer, announced Arc, its own settlement blockchain, developed in collaboration with Paradigm.

Startups Plasma and Stable recently raised funding to build dedicated blockchains for USDT, the largest stablecoin on the market, with a market cap of nearly $170 bln.

Tokenization firms are also moving to build their own blockchains. Securitize, for example, is developing Converge with Ethena, while Dinari is expected to launch an Avalanche-powered L1 blockchain for clearing and settling tokenized stocks.

Why do they need their own blockchain?

Currently, the lion’s share of stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) operate on public blockchains like Ethereum or Solana. These networks offer issuers global reach and liquidity. However, when it comes to control and strategic positioning, issuers increasingly prefer to run their own chains.

Building their own L1s allows projects to increase control, reduce costs and integrate compliance measures.

Meanwhile, although platforms like Tempo or Arc could emerge as competitors to heavyweights such as Ethereum or Solana, it may take new entrants years to truly establish themselves. Beyond technology, they will need to prove their security, custody integration and resilience.

Overall, new L1 projects in the stablecoin and RWA segments highlight a further convergence between traditional finance and DeFi, as well as growing adoption of blockchain-based technology.

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