Stripe is building a high-performance blockchain called “Tempo” to fill a critical gap in its crypto stack, complementing its recent acquisitions of stablecoin startup Bridge and wallet infrastructure provider Privy. Stablecoins promise to make crypto mainstream by delivering faster, cheaper, and more interconnected global payments. However, the same move could undercut what the technology set out to achieve. With the GENIUS Act now law, the next 12-18 months will likely determine the outcome. In the history of technology, the pendulum regularly swings between centralization and decentralization. Once concentration becomes too high, entrepreneurs and developers invent new approaches to reverse it. Bitcoin’s purpose was to break free from centralized intermediaries, and entrepreneurs and developers have applied the same principles to bring decentralization back to other digital platforms. However, progress toward decentralization is mixed, with Bitcoin allowing anyone around the world to be their own bank, while the vast majority of consumers and institutions rely heavily on intermediaries for custody and use. The battle for the future of payments is unfolding now, as legacy infrastructure is siloed and incumbents have tremendous power over what we can access and on what terms. Crypto is a natural, market-driven solution to this, providing neutral and decentralized cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether, as well as truly open and interoperable financial rails via their base layers. However, two core problems have emerged: the first problem is that cryptocurrencies are volatile and therefore expensive for payments and financial contracts. To address this, the market has focused on fiat-backed stablecoins, leading to centralization and distributed governance of a stablecoin network. The second problem crypto has run into is that decentralization is expensive, and most transactions no longer occur on the base layers (L1s) but on a sprawling ecosystem of high-throughput scaling solutions (L2s).