The brief

Analyst view

• Mainnet launched March 18, 2026, with Machine Payments Protocol for AI agent payments.
• The $500M Series A was led by Thrive Capital and Greenoaks, with Sequoia, Ribbit Capital, and SV Angel.
• Design partners: OpenAI, Shopify, Visa, Mastercard, UBS, Klarna tested on public testnet in December 2025.

Technical approach

As reported

Finality

Ultra-fast block confirmation

Tempo blocks finalize in 0.6 seconds, making it practical for real-time payment settlement without waiting for multiple confirmations.

Gas

Stablecoin-denominated fees

Transaction fees are paid in USD stablecoins rather than a volatile token, making costs predictable for merchants and applications.

Machine Payments

Autonomous agent payments

The Machine Payments Protocol lets AI agents execute payments for services—compute, data, models—without human sign-off on each transaction.

Validators

Institutional operators

Stripe, Visa, Paradigm and other financial firms validate blocks, combining traditional payment expertise with decentralized settlement.

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