Stablecoins IRL (Tempo Edition)

Welcome back to Fintech Takes. I’m Alex Johnson, joined by Dan Romero, who leads GTM at Tempo, the payments-focused blockchain co-created by Stripe and Paradigm, for a deep dive into crypto’s future as payments infrastructure.

With the GENIUS Act establishing a federal regulatory framework for stablecoins, banks and payment companies have a clearer path to adopting them as a payment rail.

I start with a challenge to Dan: explain Tempo as if I were a community bank CFO who knows absolutely nothing about crypto.

From there, we explore the bets Tempo and Stripe are making about the trade-offs that come with moving money on-chain (from the economics of stablecoins and AI-driven transactions to the trade-offs between instant settlement, consumer protections, privacy, and public liquidity).

Highlights include:

Why Stripe built a new blockchain with a dedicated payments lane, rather than have payments compete with crypto trades for space (Dan’s analogy: imagine Visa and the NYSE competing for bandwidth on the same server).

How OpenUSD proposes sharing most of its net interest margin with distributors, and whether Stripe's expanding payments stack can remain neutral toward competitors.

Could AI agents be stablecoins' breakthrough? Dan explores the rail-agnostic Machine Payments Protocol (MPP), and why agents may be more willing to switch payment methods.

Can stablecoins compete with cards on consumer protections, especially if AI agents can handle disputes on our behalf?

Can enterprises keep blockchain balances private and still access public liquidity?

Tune in for a breezy tour of the bets being placed on stablecoin rails, from someone fluent in both crypto and payments.

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This episode is brought to you by Increase.

Increase offers API-first banking for ambitious technology companies. Companies like Coast, Gusto, and Ramp rely on Increase technology to process more than $500B annualized in payments, card transactions, and loans. Learn more at https://increase.com/

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Follow Dan:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielwromero/