Payments-focused blockchain Tempo has added Visa, Stripe and Zodia Custody by Standard Chartered as its first external validators, the network announced on Tuesday.
The trio collectively process trillions of dollars in payments each year across nearly every country. Their validator nodes are responsible for verifying, sequencing and finalizing transactions on the network, bolstering operational resilience for stablecoin-based settlements.
Visa's node was configured and managed entirely in-house following six months of collaboration with Tempo's engineering team, according to a press release from the payments giant. The company is serving as an "anchor validator" during this initial phase.
"We've spent years building our expertise in blockchain, and now we're expanding that work by running critical blockchain infrastructure ourselves," said Cuy Sheffield, Visa's head of crypto.
Validators on Tempo are rewarded in stablecoins for serving as "lead validators" who package transactions into blocks. Visa also serves as a Super Validator on the Canton Network, making it one of the very few traditional payments firms running blockchain infrastructure across multiple chains.
Tempo said it plans to continue expanding the validator set with additional partners as it progresses toward fully permissionless validation.
Institutional Momentum
The validator additions cap a rapid buildup for the Ethereum-compatible Layer 1, which was first reported in August 2025 before Stripe and Paradigm officially unveiled the project the following month.
Tempo raised $500 million in a Series A led by Thrive Capital and Greenoaks in October 2025 at a $5 billion valuation, launched its public testnet in December with partners including UBS and Kalshi, and went live on mainnet in March alongside the Machine Payments Protocol, an open standard for AI agent-to-service payments co-authored with Stripe.
Still, Tempo faces skepticism from decentralization advocates who question whether a corporate-backed L1 can deliver on its permissionless promises. Whether onboarding institutional validators satisfies those concerns or reinforces them will depend on how quickly Tempo opens participation beyond its hand-picked partners.
This article was written with the assistance of AI workflows. All our stories are curated, edited and fact-checked by a human.