Matt Huang, managing partner at the venture firm Paradigm, became chief executive of Tempo on September 4, 20251. Tempo is a stablecoin-focused blockchain, and Stripe and Paradigm announced it together on September 4. Huang posted the news himself: “Tempo is purpose-built for stablecoins and real-world payments, born from Stripe's experience in global payments and Paradigm's expertise in crypto.” Fortune reported on September 4, 2025, that Huang would lead Tempo while he kept his seat at Paradigm, next to its other managing partner, Alana Palmedo2.
35 CEO appointments on the record in 2025, the most of any year
CEO appointments CryptoLately has verified, by year; 2026 through Oct. 2, 2026
- 2025: 35
- 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2026
Moves: The Moves Ledger, CryptoLately's record of verified leadership moves, Oct. 3, 2016 to Oct. 2, 2026.
Read the chart as a table
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| 2019 | 8 |
| 2020 | 7 |
| 2021 | 6 |
| 2022 | 18 |
| 2023 | 17 |
| 2024 | 26 |
| 2025 | 35 |
| 2026 | 18 |
Capital Markets & Treasury led CEO appointments in 2025, with five
CEO appointments CryptoLately has verified in 2025, by the sector of the company
Moves: The Moves Ledger, CryptoLately's record of verified leadership moves, Oct. 3, 2016 to Oct. 2, 2026.
Read the chart as a table
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Capital Markets & Treasury | 5 |
| Regulation & Enforcement | 3 |
| Bitcoin & Mining | 3 |
| Trading Venues & Brokerage | 3 |
| Layer 1s & Infrastructure | 2 |
| Stablecoins & Payments | 2 |
| Wallets & Consumer Apps | 1 |
| Institutional Custody & Asset Management | 1 |
The move
Fortune's report named both companies and split their roles. Stripe, a $91.5 billion payments firm, was incubating the blockchain2. Paradigm would supply its chief executive. “By helping build a blockchain alongside Paradigm, whose managing partner and Stripe board member Matt Huang will lead the project, Stripe is doubling down on its crypto bet as the future of global payments,” Fortune wrote. A source who spoke to Fortune on condition of anonymity said Tempo would launch with around 15 staff and an open timeline. The same source said Tempo would skip its own token. It would take stablecoins as its fee instead.
Why would a venture firm's own partner run a company his firm helped start? Huang kept two jobs at once. He held his Paradigm title and his seat on Stripe's board, even as he took the new title at Tempo, Fortune reported2. Paradigm wrote in a blog post, which Fortune cited, that Anthropic, OpenAI, Deutsche Bank and Shopify would help build Tempo. The goal was to keep Tempo neutral, even with Stripe behind it.
Tempo before and after
Before the September 2025 announcement, Tempo was only a rumor, Fortune reported2. The outlet grouped it with a wave of new stablecoin chains, among them Circle's Arc and Tether's Plasma and Stable. Stripe brought something those rivals lacked: a built-in base of customers who mostly stayed outside crypto, Fortune wrote. The announcement gave Tempo a named leader and a clear purpose for the first time. It would run fast, cheap transactions built around stablecoins instead of a coin of its own.
What came next
Tempo's blockchain went live on March 18, 2026, after a three-and-a-half-month test run, Fortune reported3. Stripe and Tempo launched a companion tool on March 18 as well: the Machine Payments Protocol, built for AI agents to send and receive money in stablecoins or regular currency. “Agentic payments is very early, and we still are figuring out the best way to structure these,” Huang told Fortune in that report, where the outlet named him Tempo's cofounder and Paradigm's managing partner. “So our team just came up with what we thought was the most elegant, minimal, efficient protocol that anyone can extend without our permission.” Visa helped set the protocol's rules for card payments. Visa's head of crypto, Cuy Sheffield, told Fortune, “We look at MPP as another way that you can have a very clear, defined protocol around how an agent communicates with merchants.” By then Tempo had raised $500 million at a $5 billion valuation during its test phase, Fortune reported, with Thrive Capital among its backers.
Sources
- Matt Huang, post on X, September 4, 2025, https://x.com/matthuang/status/1963633380597404004
- Leo Schwartz, "Stripe and Paradigm announce new payments-focused blockchain Tempo," Fortune, September 4, 2025, https://fortune.com/crypto/2025/09/04/stripe-paradigm-tempo-blockchain-stablecoins-matt-huang-payments/
- Ben Weiss, "Stripe-backed crypto startup Tempo releases AI payments protocol, launches blockchain," Fortune, March 18, 2026, https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMihAFBVV95cUxOQWV0SHNfakoxY2ZhYWltWUxMclNHcFlXc2pWV1BkRXhkMTd1ODB2bHhFckR2SnF5VWtfUXJYQ0xoMWFqVXFoVkpyQ3JBMnBXMm9zbWpsTTZnbmptVXIzbnpHcDdxSHdBVi1aUWNxdXBEOTctcTJZNHNrQ0Jmd0JNUWQ2MXo?oc=5