News

Stripe Deploys Tempo L1 Blockchain to Mainnet

Stripe's highly anticipated L1 blockchain has finally arrived, and comes equipped with a new standard for agentic payments.

Mar 18, 2026 • 1 min read

Tempo, a payments-focused L1 blockchain created by fintech Stripe in collaboration with crypto VC Paradigm, has deployed live to mainnet.

What's the Scoop?

New Chain: Tempo Mainnet is now live. Starting today, anyone can build on Tempo through the blockchain's public RPC endpoints. First announced in September, Tempo is a high-scale blockchain designed specifically for financial services applications, including remittances, tokenized deposits, and micro-transactions.
Agentic Focus: Alongside the launch of Tempo, Stripe has also introduced its Machine Payments Protocol (MPP), an open standard for machine payments to serve emergent agentic operations. According to a Stripe blog post, MPP will allow, "agents and services to coordinate payments programmatically," empowering autonomous account holders to make micropayments, recurring transactions, and more.
Crypto Streak: Stripe has bulked out an immense crypto presence in recent months, partnering with numerous companies to issue white-label stablecoins, and has expanded its crypto card issuance program with Ramp to more than 2M cards. These developments build on Stripe's acquisitions of stablecoin issuance platform Bridge in 2024 and crypto wallet interface Privy in 2025.
Banking Approval: Last month, Bridge received conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to become a federally chartered national trust bank, allowing it to custody assets nationwide without needing to secure state-level licenses.

Tempo mainnet is live and permissionless

We designed it to be the best blockchain for payments, and every feature serves that goal

We're also introducing a new standard for web and agentic payments, the Machine Payments Protocol, which you can use today https://t.co/xmMbEb8Dtm
— Dan Robinson (@danrobinson) March 18, 2026

Not financial or tax advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This newsletter is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here.

Published in Bankless

There’s a revolution in the world of money. Ethereum, Bitcoin, crypto, open finance, DeFi—a bankless revolution. And you want part of it.