Stripe Launches L1 Blockchain: Tempo • Hacker News Board

Re: Stripe Launches L1 Blockchain: Tempo

#201

Post by vanviegen » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 6:53 PM UTC

stale2002 wrote: post #169

jrm4 wrote: post #125

Ah the layers. Okay, so one: Obviously pointless from a tech POV. There is nothing that a Stripe controlled blockchain could offer that a database could not. But then, why? Sadly, as someone who does like the ideals of true cryptocurrency, yet another way to make sure "real" crypto doesn't happen, much like what is happening to BTC. Here's hoping (yeah, it's a long shot) people see through all of this and maybe, MAYB…

> There is nothing that a Stripe controlled blockchain could offer that a database could not. There absolutely is. Its called having access to the ecosystem. The money features that exist in the current blockchain landscape are simply a better developer ecosystem, with many more features, than the non existent "Database driven", uhh money tools. Blockchains are no longer about the singular feature of having a trustle…

> the non existent "Database driven", uhh money tools.

Are you claiming here that things like banks and stock markets don't exist?

Genuinely curious though; what kind of 'money related features', that have no non-crypto counterparts, are you referring to?

Re: Stripe Launches L1 Blockchain: Tempo

#202

Post by baby » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 6:55 PM UTC

jrm4 wrote: post #125

Ah the layers. Okay, so one: Obviously pointless from a tech POV. There is nothing that a Stripe controlled blockchain could offer that a database could not. But then, why? Sadly, as someone who does like the ideals of true cryptocurrency, yet another way to make sure "real" crypto doesn't happen, much like what is happening to BTC. Here's hoping (yeah, it's a long shot) people see through all of this and maybe, MAYB…

A cryptocurrency is basically a distributed database, except that you are getting different actors who don't necessarily trust one to run it cooperatively.

Re: Stripe Launches L1 Blockchain: Tempo

#203

Post by sublimefire » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 6:55 PM UTC

kristjansson wrote: post #174

agambrahma wrote: post #141

[I'm likely missing something, but] "EVM-compatible, built on Reth" => they're essentially building a private Ethereum fork with a fancy validator selection process. Couldn't they just get these benefits (predictable fees, fast settlement) by ... running a database between these financial institutions? If Stripe controls the validator set (even indirectly), then ... just a distributed database with extra steps, no?

Blockchains are foremost a social technology :)

It is possible to say that about many technologies, e.g. planes, websites, apps, even games.

Re: Stripe Launches L1 Blockchain: Tempo

#204

Post by dmbche » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 6:55 PM UTC

apinstein wrote: post #151

Here's the play. It's very simple, and it's quite good. Stripe processes a LOT of money. The customers that get that money need to move it around. Often to banks. Stripe makes no money on that. Over the last few years, stablecoins have become a preferred means to hold and move money (for convenience, etc). Stablecoin providers make money on their float -- selling stablecoins means you get free deposits, and risk-free…

Beautiful - clean and clear. Thank you.

I'm not in that space, but how stable is that 4%? What is it correlated to?

Re: Stripe Launches L1 Blockchain: Tempo

#205

Post by 3PS » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 6:56 PM UTC

petertodd wrote: post #164

jrm4 wrote: post #125

Ah the layers. Okay, so one: Obviously pointless from a tech POV. There is nothing that a Stripe controlled blockchain could offer that a database could not. But then, why? Sadly, as someone who does like the ideals of true cryptocurrency, yet another way to make sure "real" crypto doesn't happen, much like what is happening to BTC. Here's hoping (yeah, it's a long shot) people see through all of this and maybe, MAYB…

> There is nothing that a Stripe controlled blockchain could offer that a database could not. One way of thinking about a blockchain is to think of it as a shared datastructure to keep databases in sync. Any time you want to distribute your database over more than just a single central place, in a cryptographically secure way, you're probably going to re-invent a blockchain to do it.

> One way of thinking about a blockchain is to think of it as a shared datastructure to keep databases in sync. Any time you want to distribute your database over more than just a single central place, in a cryptographically secure way, you're probably going to re-invent a blockchain to do it.

Even more specifically, a blockchain is for when you want Byzantine fault tolerance, i.e. you don't trust one or more of the actors involved. This is the main distinguishing feature of blockchains IMO, the reason we have proof of work, proof of stake, etc. It's also the main thing I saw people getting wrong when using blockchains during the earlier waves of cryptocurrency fever; most proposals for blockchains did make sense as distributed public ledgers, but didn't really need the extra computational overhead because only trusted parties were adding blocks to begin with.

Re: Stripe Launches L1 Blockchain: Tempo

#206

Post by udev4096 » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 6:56 PM UTC

jrm4 wrote: post #125

Ah the layers. Okay, so one: Obviously pointless from a tech POV. There is nothing that a Stripe controlled blockchain could offer that a database could not. But then, why? Sadly, as someone who does like the ideals of true cryptocurrency, yet another way to make sure "real" crypto doesn't happen, much like what is happening to BTC. Here's hoping (yeah, it's a long shot) people see through all of this and maybe, MAYB…

Monero is pretty much what satoshi envisioned. Strong math, real value and active community. Sadly, it's getting attacked by qubic

Re: Stripe Launches L1 Blockchain: Tempo

#207

Post by udev4096 » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 6:57 PM UTC

baby wrote: post #202

jrm4 wrote: post #125

Ah the layers. Okay, so one: Obviously pointless from a tech POV. There is nothing that a Stripe controlled blockchain could offer that a database could not. But then, why? Sadly, as someone who does like the ideals of true cryptocurrency, yet another way to make sure "real" crypto doesn't happen, much like what is happening to BTC. Here's hoping (yeah, it's a long shot) people see through all of this and maybe, MAYB…

A cryptocurrency is basically a distributed database, except that you are getting different actors who don't necessarily trust one to run it cooperatively.

It's a LOT more than that. You are still stuck in satoshi-era. Things have evolved quite a bit that it's no longer just a db sync

Re: Stripe Launches L1 Blockchain: Tempo

#208

Post by stevoski » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 6:57 PM UTC

pc wrote: post #46

There are lots of crypto skeptics on HN (and we ourselves were disappointed with crypto's payments utility for much of the past decade), so it might be interesting to share what changed our mind over the past couple of years: we started to notice a lot of real-world businesses finding utility in stablecoins. For example, Bridge (a stablecoin orchestration platform that Stripe acquired) is used by SpaceX for managing…

“Argentinian bike importer”?

A little bit of trouble coming up with enough examples of anyone who wants or needs this, I think?

Re: Stripe Launches L1 Blockchain: Tempo

#209

Post by hvb2 » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 6:57 PM UTC

baby wrote: post #182

jchw wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of us are not really deep into the finance space. Maybe there's a good reason it's left unsaid, but the question I came away with after reading that page and this comment is, why are businesses finding crypto easier/faster/better? To me, it's not 100% clear exactly who Tempo is for and not for, and why blockchain is more suitable than traditional centralized database technology here. And it sounds like this sys…

I'll attempt an answer: Today, if you want to transact between businesses or retail (folks like you and I), you need to find a route between the two entities' banks. This route might take several hops, passing through some central banks, and some of these hops might be instant or might take days to actually settle. On top of that, you need to pay the service that helped you find a route (SWIFT) and potentially the no…

So why can a traditional bank not solve this?

In Europe you can wire money across borders for free, you just need to know the account number. Arrives in seconds at 0 cost.

I feel like a lot of the fintech in the US is purely a result of a lack of regulation.

For the example of Argentina, the real reason that business is using crypto is because their currency is unreliable. It might be a good fit there but trading in dollars would've fixed that too.

Re: Stripe Launches L1 Blockchain: Tempo

#210

Post by baby » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 6:58 PM UTC

agambrahma wrote: post #141

[I'm likely missing something, but] "EVM-compatible, built on Reth" => they're essentially building a private Ethereum fork with a fancy validator selection process. Couldn't they just get these benefits (predictable fees, fast settlement) by ... running a database between these financial institutions? If Stripe controls the validator set (even indirectly), then ... just a distributed database with extra steps, no?

Reth is basically a decentralized database, do you mean that they could have done without the EVM?