Tempo Blockchain and the Stablecoin Chains: Arc, Plasma, Stable

Tempo is a Layer 1 blockchain built for stablecoin payments. Stripe and the crypto investment firm Paradigm incubated it, and its mainnet has been live since 18 March 2026, according to Tempo's own FAQ. It has no volatile gas token. Fees are paid in USD stablecoins, blocks finalise in about 0.6 seconds, and the validators are known companies rather than anonymous stakers.

Tempo is one of four "stablechains" that went live between September 2025 and September 2026. The others are Circle's Arc, Plasma and Stable. This guide covers what each one is, where it stands as of 2 October 2026, and how these single-purpose chains compare with general-purpose chains such as Sui and Ethereum.

What is a stablechain?

A stablechain is a blockchain designed mainly to move stablecoins. On most general-purpose chains you need the chain's own token to pay fees: ETH on Ethereum, SUI on Sui. That is a real obstacle for payments. A business that only wants to send dollars should not have to buy and manage a volatile asset just to cover transaction costs.

Stablechains remove that step. They share a few design choices:

• Fees in dollars. Gas is paid in a stablecoin (USDC on Arc, USDT on Stable, any supported USD stablecoin on Tempo), or simple stablecoin transfers are free (Plasma).
• Fast, final settlement. Sub-second or near-instant finality with no chain reorganisations, so a payment cannot be reversed once it is confirmed.
• Known validators, at least at launch. Arc and Tempo both started with permissioned validator sets made up of financial institutions.
• EVM compatibility. All four run Ethereum-style smart contracts, so existing wallets and developer tools work.

The money behind them is large. Total stablecoin supply across all chains was about $311.4 billion on 2 October 2026, according to DefiLlama. Payment companies want their own share of that settlement flow, and they would rather not depend on someone else's chain for it.

Tempo: Stripe and Paradigm's payments chain

Tempo is the stablechain most closely tied to mainstream payments. Its FAQ describes it as "a fully EVM-compatible Layer 1 built with the Reth SDK" and says standard stablecoin transfers cost less than a cent. The project also advertises dedicated payment lanes, blockspace reserved for payments so fees stay low when the network is busy, on its homepage.

Key facts, all as of 2 October 2026:

• Mainnet: live since 18 March 2026 (Tempo FAQ). Ledger Insights reported on 20 March 2026 that it launched alongside the Machine Payments Protocol, an open standard for AI agents and machines to pay for services.
• Validators: MoneyGram, Stripe, Visa and Zodia Custody (Standard Chartered). Tempo says it is expanding the set "on a path towards permissionless validation", which means it is still permissioned today.
• Native token: none mentioned in the FAQ. Fees are paid "in supported USD-denominated stablecoins rather than a volatile native gas token."
• Real usage: DoorDash began rolling out stablecoin payouts to merchants through Tempo, starting with cross-border payments, CoinDesk reported on 21 April 2026.
• Stablecoins on chain: about $729 million on 2 October 2026, per DefiLlama's stablecoin chain rankings.

Tempo's main advantage is distribution. Stripe already processes payments for millions of businesses, and Mastercard listed Tempo among the networks it supports for stablecoin settlement in June 2026.

Arc: Circle's USDC-native chain

Arc is Circle's own Layer 1. Circle issues USDC, the second-largest stablecoin, with about $74.1 billion in circulation on 2 October 2026 according to DefiLlama. Arc's mainnet went live on 16 September 2026, the date set in Arc's launch announcement.

• Gas: paid in stablecoins, starting with USDC, with "sub-second transaction finality" (Arc blog).
• Validators: a permissioned founding cohort of 11 institutions: BlackRock, DTCC, Galaxy, ICE, Mastercard, MoneyGram, SBI Group, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo Corporation, Visa and Worldpay. TechNode Global reported on 18 September 2026 that "the network is public, but its validator set is permissioned at launch."
• Ecosystem: more than 100 institutional and ecosystem builders and more than 100 applications at launch (same source).
• ARC token: Circle completed a genesis mint of 10 billion ARC tokens, but said this "does not amount to a commitment to publicly launch the token" (TechNode Global).
• Stablecoins on chain: about $512 million on 2 October 2026 (DefiLlama), only two weeks after launch.

Arc's pitch is settlement for financial markets: stablecoin payments, foreign exchange and tokenised assets on a chain run by the institutions that already run those markets. Having both Visa and Mastercard among the validators is notable.

Plasma: zero-fee USDT transfers

Plasma is aimed at Tether's USDT, the largest stablecoin, with about $184.1 billion in circulation on 2 October 2026 (DefiLlama). Its mainnet beta launched on 25 September 2025, as Cryptonews.net notes, with the project reporting $2 billion in stablecoin liquidity on day one (Dropstab).

• Fees: Plasma's website advertises free USDT transfers on Plasma routes, with a caveat that third-party fees may apply.
• Consumer product: Plasma One, a stablecoin account with a Visa card. Plasma says on the same page that it is "a financial technology company, not a regulated financial institution, bank, money services business or investment advisor," and that stablecoin balances are not bank deposits.
• Token: XPL. On 25 September 2026 a one-year cliff released about 1.81 billion XPL to the team and investors, roughly 65% of the circulating supply at the time, according to Cryptonews.net. Unlocked does not mean sold, but unlocks of this size are worth watching.
• Stablecoins on chain: about $1.37 billion on 2 October 2026 (DefiLlama), the most of the four stablechains.

Unlike Arc and Tempo, Plasma has a tradeable native token and a DeFi ecosystem from day one. That brings more on-chain activity, and more token-price risk.

Stable: USDT as the gas token

Stable (the network is called StableChain) launched its mainnet on 8 December 2025, The Block reported. Bitfinex and Hack VC led its $28 million seed round. The key details:

• USDT is the gas token for fees.
• A separate STABLE token is used for governance and network security.
• It is EVM-compatible and uses a delegated proof-of-stake design called StableBFT.
• Its pre-deposit campaign drew more than $2 billion from over 24,000 wallets before launch (The Block).

Those pre-deposits have not stayed. DefiLlama showed only about $21 million in stablecoins on Stable on 2 October 2026 (DefiLlama). Incentive-driven deposits often leave when the incentives end, so pre-launch numbers say little about real use.

Tempo vs Arc vs Plasma vs Stable at a glance

For context, Ethereum held about $146 billion of stablecoins on the same date, per DefiLlama. Taken together, the four stablechains hold about 2% of that.

Stablechains vs general-purpose chains like Sui and Ethereum

The difference between stablechains and general-purpose chains is getting smaller. On 20 May 2026 Sui launched gasless stablecoin transfers. Wallet-to-wallet transfers of supported stablecoins, including USDC, USDsui, AUSD and USDY, now cost $0.00, using a new Address Balances system, according to the Sui blog. Sui says it has processed more than $1 trillion in stablecoin transfer volume since August 2025.

So the questions to ask are less about fees and more about these trade-offs:

• Who runs the validators. Arc and Tempo use known, permissioned institutions. That suits banks and card networks that need a regulated counterparty. It also means a small group could, in principle, censor or pause activity. Sui and Ethereum have open validator sets.
• Composability. On a general-purpose chain, a stablecoin sits next to lending markets, DEXs and liquid staking. On a payments chain, that ecosystem is still young.
• Liquidity. Ethereum's $146 billion and Sui's roughly $483 million of stablecoins (DefiLlama, 2 October 2026) are already being used in DeFi. New chains need bridges, and every bridge adds risk.
• Issuer alignment. Arc is Circle's chain and Plasma is built around USDT. A chain run by one issuer may not treat rival stablecoins equally.

The likely outcome is that these coexist. Stablechains handle institutional settlement and payouts, while general-purpose chains stay where stablecoins are lent, swapped and used as collateral. For background on which stablecoins exist and how they are backed, see our stablecoins explainer.

Where JewelSwap fits

JewelSwap is a DeFi protocol on MultiversX, Sui and Radix, not a payments chain. On Sui it runs stablecoin farming strategies built on Scallop and Cetus, which is the kind of on-chain use that general-purpose chains are good at. If you are comparing Sui protocols, our guide to DeFi on Sui covers the main options. Treat any farming yield as variable and check the risks first.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Tempo blockchain live?

Yes. Tempo's mainnet has been live since 18 March 2026, according to its FAQ. Fees are paid in USD stablecoins and blocks finalise in about 0.6 seconds.

Does Tempo have a token?

Tempo's FAQ does not mention a native token. Network fees are paid in supported USD-denominated stablecoins, and the validators are permissioned companies including Stripe, Visa, MoneyGram and Zodia Custody.

When did Circle's Arc mainnet launch?

Arc's public mainnet went live on 16 September 2026, with a permissioned group of 11 founding validators that includes BlackRock, Mastercard and Visa. Fees are paid in stablecoins, starting with USDC.

What is the difference between Plasma and Stable?

Both focus on USDT. Plasma offers free USDT transfers on its routes and has its own XPL token. Stable uses USDT as its gas token and has a separate STABLE token for governance and security.

Are stablechains better than Ethereum or Sui for payments?

Not necessarily. Stablechains offer dollar-denominated fees and known validators. Sui now has gasless transfers for supported stablecoins, and Ethereum and Sui have far more DeFi liquidity and open validator sets. Which is better depends on whether you need institutional settlement or DeFi composability.

Keep reading

• Stablecoin payments in 2026: what Visa, Mastercard, Stripe and PayPal are doing
• Stablecoin issuers in 2026: who issues what
• Tokenized deposits vs stablecoins
• Crypto trends 2026
• Multi-chain DeFi explained
• JewelSwap crypto glossary

This article is educational and isn't financial advice. Network details are from each project's own documentation and the news sources linked above. Stablecoin supply figures are from DefiLlama as of 2 October 2026 and change daily. JewelSwap does not operate any of the chains described.