Tempo Testnet: The Future of Onchain Payments
Discover the launch of Tempo's public testnet, designed specifically for payment applications with instant settlement, low fees, and stablecoin-native features. Explore its core features, real-world use cases, and the path toward mainnet deployment.
Introducing Tempo’s Public Testnet: A New Era for Onchain Payments
The blockchain landscape is evolving rapidly, and today marks a significant milestone with the launch of Tempo’s public testnet. Now, developers and companies worldwide can begin building on Tempo’s robust network designed specifically for payment applications.
Tempo is engineered to provide instant, deterministic settlement with predictably low fees and a stablecoin-native experience — addressing challenges that many general-purpose blockchains face in financial use cases.
What Makes Tempo’s Testnet Stand Out?
Since its announcement in September, Tempo has accelerated from concept to a live testnet engaged by industry leaders including Anthropic, Deutsche Bank, Visa, Mastercard, OpenAI, and many more. Their participation validates the practical impact of Tempo’s payment-first blockchain.
Core Features Live on Testnet
Dedicated Payment Lanes
Payments on Tempo enjoy reserved blockspace at the protocol level, ensuring they do not compete with other network activities like NFT mints or contract calls. This means fees remain low — targeting just one-tenth of a cent per transaction — even amid spikes in other blockchain activities.
Stablecoin-Native Gas
Transaction fees are payable directly in USD-denominated stablecoins, eliminating the need for volatile gas tokens. This simplifies accounting and cost predictability for payment applications, while convenience is enhanced for wallets and custodians removing the need to hold various cryptocurrencies just to cover fees.
Built-In Stable Asset DEX
Tempo includes a native decentralized exchange optimized for stablecoins, allowing seamless fee payment and validator reward distribution in any USD stablecoin. It consolidates liquidity onchain for easier routing and facilitates cross-stablecoin payments.
Payments and Transfers Metadata
Each transaction can carry structured memo fields for identifiers like invoice numbers and cost centers. This directly supports straightforward reconciliation with ERP and accounting systems, and off-chain data can be referenced securely to preserve privacy while maintaining auditability.
Fast, Deterministic Finality
Using Byzantine fault-tolerant consensus and an initial set of four validators, Tempo finalizes blocks roughly every 0.5 seconds, providing settlement certainty akin to traditional financial systems but with blockchain speed.
Modern Wallet Signing Methods
Tempo supports gas sponsorship, batched transactions, scheduled payments, and modern authentication via passkeys, enabling developers to deploy payment logic efficiently without extra middleware.
Building on Tempo: Real-World Payment Workloads
Tempo's testnet supports a diverse range of high-impact payment scenarios:
- Remittances: Fast, certain settlement with predictable costs for cross-border transfers.
- Global Payouts: Reliable, low-cost rails for payroll and commerce disbursements.
- Embedded Finance: Integration of payments in consumer and enterprise apps without building new infrastructure.
- Microtransactions: Economical fixed fees make usage-based services commercially viable.
- Agentic Commerce: Programmable accounts enable agents to transact instantly and predictably.
- Tokenized Deposits: Institutions experiment with real-time settlement and compliance on Tempo.
This diversity highlights Tempo's potential to underpin the future of digital payments.
The Road to Mainnet: What to Expect
Today’s public testnet signals the beginning of rigorous testing focused on scaling, reliability, and developer experience. Over the coming months, Tempo plans to:
- Onboard new infrastructure and ecosystem partners
- Add features and developer tools
- Conduct stress tests under real payment workloads
Importantly, while the testnet currently operates with a team-managed validator set, the mainnet will transition towards a fully permissionless, decentralized validator network including partners and independent operators. Tempo's open-source client and permissionless nature will empower anyone to participate.
Why Tempo Matters
By addressing critical pain points in blockchain payments — speed, cost stability, deterministic settlement, and seamless stablecoin integration — Tempo is pioneering a new class of blockchain tailored for financial applications.
As payments increasingly move onchain, solutions like Tempo will enable faster, more reliable, and programmable money flows that are native to the internet era.
Get Started with Tempo Today
- Explore use cases: Stablecoin Use Cases on Tempo
- Dive into documentation: Tempo Docs
- Join as an ecosystem partner: Partner with Tempo
- Apply for careers: Tempo Jobs
The future of onchain payments is here — and it moves fast, costs less, and is built to scale. Tempo’s testnet invites you to build the next generation of payment solutions on a blockchain designed for the financial world.
Note: The image illustrating the testnet architecture has been removed due to display issues.