tempoxyz/tempo

Tempo

The blockchain for payments at scale.

Tempo is a blockchain designed specifically for stablecoin payments. Its architecture focuses on high throughput, low cost, and features that financial institutions, payment service providers, and fintech platforms expect from modern payment infrastructure.

You can get started today by integrating with the Tempo testnet, building on Tempo, running a Tempo node, reading the Tempo protocol specs or by building with Tempo SDKs.

What makes Tempo different

• TIP‑20 token standard (enshrined ERC‑20 extensions)

  • Predictable payment throughput via dedicated payment lanes reserved for TIP‑20 transfers (eliminates noisy‑neighbor contention).
  • Native reconciliation with on‑transfer memos and commitment patterns (hash/locator) for off‑chain PII and large data.
  • Built‑in compliance through TIP‑403 Policy Registry: single policy shared across multiple tokens, updated once and enforced everywhere.

• Low, predictable fees in stablecoins

  • Users pay gas directly in USD-stablecoins at launch; the Fee AMM automatically converts to the validator’s preferred stablecoin.
  • TIP‑20 transfers target sub‑millidollar costs (<$0.001).

• Tempo Transactions (native “smart accounts”)

  • Batched payments: atomic multi‑operation payouts (payroll, settlements, refunds).
  • Fee sponsorship: apps can pay users’ gas to streamline onboarding and flows.
  • Scheduled payments: protocol‑level time windows for recurring and timed disbursements.
  • Modern authentication: passkeys via WebAuthn/P256 (biometric sign‑in, secure enclave, cross‑device sync).

• Performance and finality

  • Built on the Reth SDK, the most performant and flexible EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) execution client.
  • Simplex Consensus (via Commonware): fast, sub‑second finality in normal conditions; graceful degradation under adverse networks.

• Coming soon

  • On‑chain FX and non‑USD stablecoin support for direct on‑chain liquidity; pay fees in more currencies.
  • Native private token standard: opt‑in privacy for balances/transfers coexisting with issuer compliance and auditability.

What makes Tempo familiar

• Fully compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), targeting the Osaka hardfork.
• Deploy and interact with smart contracts using the same tools, languages, and frameworks used on Ethereum, such as Solidity, Foundry, and Hardhat.
• All Ethereum JSON-RPC methods work out of the box.

While the execution environment mirrors Ethereum’s, Tempo introduces some differences optimized for payments, described here.

Getting Started

As a user

You can connect to Tempo’s public testnet using the following details:

Next, grab some stablecoins to test with from Tempo’s Faucet.

Alternatively, use cast:

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cast rpc tempo_fundAddress <ADDRESS> --rpc-url https://rpc.testnet.tempo.xyz

As an operator

We provide three different installation paths: installing a pre-built binary, building from source or using our provided Docker image.

• Pre-built Binary
• Build from Source
• Docker

See the Tempo documentation for instructions on how to install and run Tempo.

As a developer

Tempo has several SDKs to help you get started building on Tempo:

• TypeScript
• Rust
• Go
• Foundry

Want to contribute?

First, clone the repository:

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git clone https://github.com/tempoxyz/tempo
cd tempo

Next, install just.

Install the dependencies:

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just

Build Tempo:

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just build-all

Run the tests:

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cargo nextest run

Start a localnet:

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just localnet

Contributing

Our contributor guidelines can be found in CONTRIBUTING.md.

Security

See SECURITY.md. Note: Tempo is still undergoing audit and does not have an active bug bounty. Submissions will not be eligible for a bounty until audits have concluded.

License

Licensed under either of Apache License, Version 2.0 or MIT License at your option.

Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in these crates by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be dual licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.