Tempo's testnet just dropped, and the specs are wild. They pulled in half a billion dollars at a $5 billion valuation—Stripe and Paradigm leading the charge. This isn't another general-purpose chain trying to do everything; it's laser-focused on one thing: payments.

What makes it different? Gas fees paid in stablecoins, which actually makes sense for real transactions. They've built dedicated lanes specifically for payment processing, so your transfer doesn't get stuck behind some NFT mint. Finality is deterministic—no waiting around wondering if your payment went through.

They've also baked in a native DEX for stable assets and programmable smart accounts that could change how we think about payment logic. The technical architecture seems purpose-built rather than retrofitted.

With traditional payment giants like Stripe backing this, it might signal where institutional money thinks the payment rails are heading. Worth monitoring how this testnet performs under real conditions.