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Farcaster's Founding Team Joins Paradigm-Backed Tempo Blockchain

The Merkle team is now developing with Tempo two weeks after leaving Farcaster.
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Feb 9, 2026 • 1 min read

Farcaster founders Dan Romero, Varun Srinivasan, and the rest of Merkle team have joined the Paradigm-backed Tempo blockchain. The announcement comes just over two weeks after Merkle disclosed the sale Farcaster to ecosystem developer Neynar.

What's the Scoop?

  • Stablecoin Pivot: Merkle Labs – the founding team behind decentralized social protocol Farcaster – has joined Stripe's stablecoin-focused Tempo Layer 1 blockchain. Co-founders Dan Romero and Varun Srinivasan both noted excitement around stablecoin opportunities in their acceptance posts.
  • Close Relationship: Paradigm was a major investor in Merkle Labs, leading the developer's $150M Series A fundraising round that catapulted its valuation to $1B+ unicorn status. The VC is also a major backer of Tempo, having led the L1's $500M Series A raise at a $5B valuation in October.
  • Actively Expanding: Tempo is aggressively acquiring developer talent from Ethereum adjacent ecosystems. The L1 contentiously hired Ethereum Foundation scaling researcher Dankrad Feist immediately after its October raise and is currently advertising 17 open roles.

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