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Stripes

Stripe’s USDC Transfers Exceed $100 Million on Polygon, Base, Ethereum

by admin October 4, 2025

Stripe hits $100 million in USDC transfers across Polygon, Ethereum, Base
More and more corporations join stablecoin race

Stripe, a leading global fintech company, hit an all-time high in USDC stablecoin transfers. In September 2025 alone, the platform processed over $17 million in USDC via three blockchains, with Polygon (POL) outshining Ethereum (ETH).

Stripe hits $100 million in USDC transfers across Polygon, Ethereum, Base

Stripe’s Global Financial Accounts service eclipsed a cumulative $100 million in transfers via the USDC stablecoin. This massive amount was processed on three blockchains: Polygon (POL), Ethereum (ETH) and Base.

Such results were shared by Alex Obchakevich, seasoned cryptocurrency researcher and investor, with his 64.5K followers on X yesterday, Oct. 3, 2025.

In September 2025, the platform set a new all-time high in terms of stablecoin rails’ usage. Stripe transmitted $17 million in USDC coins. Since May 2025, Polygon (POL) has been processing more value than Ethereum (ETH), the Dune dashboard by Obchakevich says.

In total, Polygon (POL) was responsible for $51 million in equivalent, Ethereum (ETH) processed $48 million, while Base totaled $3 million.

The service is available in over 100 countries and territories globally. Paxos, a U.S. fintech heavyweight, is handling the technical side of the integration.

More and more corporations join stablecoin race

In 2025, more and more Web2 digital payment systems are exploring the opportunities of stablecoins. Last week, PayPal launched Aave incentives for its PYUSD stablecoin.

As covered by U.Today previously, Ripple president Monica Long named TradFis integrating stablecoins as one of the hottest trends of 2025.

How Stripe’s Tempo and Circle’s Arc Fail the Decentralization Test, Explains Libra Co-Creator

by admin September 7, 2025

Christian Catalini, co-creator of Facebook’s Libra project, warned on Friday that Stripe’s Tempo and Circle’s Arc could succeed commercially but at the cost of crypto’s decentralization ideal.

Launched in 2019, Libra was Meta’s bold bid to create a global digital currency backed by a basket of stable assets. The project promised to make payments as seamless as messaging, but it triggered immediate backlash from regulators concerned about financial sovereignty, systemic risk, and user privacy. By 2022, Libra — renamed Diem in a bid to reset its image — was shuttered and its assets sold off.

Catalini, who served as Libra’s chief economist, used his Sept. 5 thread on X to revisit the project’s early compromises and explain why they matter now. He said the original open design, developed with Harvard economist Scott Kominers, was reduced to a short appendix after months of regulatory negotiations.

The first major retreat, he wrote, was abandoning non-custodial wallets. Regulators insisted on a “clear perimeter,” meaning a responsible intermediary they could contact — and penalize — if problems arose.

For supervisors used to intermediated finance, a world where users truly held their own money was unmanageable. “For them, killing self-custody wasn’t a choice, it was an obvious necessity,” he recalled.

Catalini noted the irony: today, open networks are developing compliance tools native to blockchain that could have addressed these concerns more effectively than traditional frameworks. But back then, Libra was forced to strip away decentralization, a change he described as an early signal of where corporate-led projects were heading.

His broader lesson was stark: “As long as there is a single throat to choke — or a committee of them — you can’t truly rewire the system. Worse, any network with an architect is living on borrowed time.”

Arc and Tempo in the Spotlight

Catalini placed Stripe’s Tempo and Circle’s Arc in that context. Both are new blockchains designed explicitly for payments, promoted as stablecoin-first infrastructure for enterprises and fintechs.

Circle launched Arc on Aug. 12, presenting it as a Layer-1 network purpose-built for stablecoin finance. Unlike public chains that rely on volatile gas tokens, Arc uses USDC for fees, offering predictable, dollar-denominated costs.

It integrates a built-in foreign exchange engine, promises sub-second finality, and includes opt-in privacy features. Circle said Arc will support cross-border payments, onchain credit systems, tokenized capital markets and programmable, automated payments.

Just weeks later, Stripe and Paradigm unveiled Tempo on Sept. 4, describing it as a payments-first blockchain capable of handling over 100,000 transactions per second.

The network is EVM-compatible, features a dedicated payments lane with support for memos and access lists, and allows users to pay both transactions and gas in any stablecoin. Stripe said early design partners include Visa, Deutsche Bank, Revolut, Nubank, Shopify, OpenAI, Anthropic and DoorDash.

Both projects were marketed as steps toward mainstreaming stablecoin payments. But for Catalini, they raised a deeper concern.

A Revolution or a Failed Coup?

Catalini argued that corporate-led chains like Arc and Tempo risk simply rebuilding the old financial system with new players in charge. Instead of displacing card networks and banks, he warned, they could elevate fintech giants to the same position of dominance. “The throne will have new occupants, but it will be the same throne,” he wrote.

He also predicted such networks would fracture geopolitically, with Western and Eastern blocs unlikely to share a single corporate-led infrastructure. The result, he said, would be competing financial empires rather than the borderless system crypto’s early advocates envisioned.

Ultimately, Catalini described Stripe’s Tempo as a “referendum on the ghost of Libra.” If it thrives, he suggested, it may prove Libra failed because of timing, not design — and show that the dream of open, permissionless money has been overtaken by more pragmatic, centralized solutions.

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September 7, 2025 0 comments

NFT Gaming

Morning Minute: Stripe’s L1 Blockchain ‘Tempo’ Goes Live (Sort Of)

by admin September 7, 2025

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.

GM!

Today’s top news:

Crypto majors mostly even; BTC leads at $112,300 ahead of ‘Corn Moon’
WLFI blacklists Justin Sun’s tokens for terms violations
Stripe introduces payments-focused ‘Tempo’ blockchain live in testnet
New SEC releases pro-crypto agenda while Gary Gensler’s 2022-2023 texts are “lost”
Myriad drops 2 UX enhancements, teases TGE for first time

💸 Tempo Is Live (Sorta): Stripe + Paradigm’s Payments L1

The big players are coming into crypto.

And they’re accelerating.

📌 What Happened

Yesterday, Stripe and Paradigm announced Tempo, now in private testnet.

They have a heavy-hitting roster of design partners, including Visa, Deutsche Bank, Shopify, Nubank, OpenAI, Revolut and more.

The chain is purpose-built for stablecoin payments, targeting 100k+ TPS with sub-second finality, EVM compatibility (built on Reth) and a model that lets fees be paid in any stablecoin via an enshrined AMM.

So what’s it for?

The target use cases are global payouts, payroll, remittances, micro-transactions, tokenized deposits (24/7 settlement), embedded accounts, and even agentic payments.

🗣️ What They’re Saying

“We hope that Tempo makes it easier for things like payment acceptance, global payouts, remittances, microtransactions, tokenized deposits, agentic payments … to move onchain.” – Patrick Collison, Stripe CEO

“We’re building Tempo with principles of decentralization and neutrality… launch with a diverse set of validators, transition to a permissionless model.” – Matt Huang, Paradigm

the most important detail about stripe/paradigm’s stablecoin chain is that they are STABLECOIN NEUTRAL

while all the other stablecoin chains are playing tribalism, tempo swoops in to take everything https://t.co/eZWhtrIZRP

— John Wang (@j0hnwang) September 5, 2025

🧠 Why It Matters

There’s a reason why so many big players are building stablecoin products and infrastructure.

Fees are lower for on-chain payments.

For a $100 item, a standard credit card fee would be $3.20. If purchased via stablecoins, fees would be $0.50 or much lower – a huge spread.

That’s the opportunity that Stripe sees, and they’re clearly moving quickly.

Their advantage here is their purpose-built chain (along with their laundry list of launch partners and beta testers).

Many of today’s big chains were optimized for trading, while Tempo optimizes for payments, the largest real-world use case for crypto.

If it works, on-chain dollars become the default rail for payouts and commerce.

And that’s a boon for the broader crypto space. More stablecoins grow the overall crypto pie and bring more users on-chain.

But it doesn’t necessarily mean your favorite L1 blockchain’s token is going to go up in price…

🌎 Macro Crypto and Memes

A few Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

Crypto majors are mostly even with BTC leading; BTC +1% at $112,300, ETH even at $4,420, XRP even at $2.84, SOL -1% at $207
M (+26%), PUMP (+10%) and XDC (+5%) led top movers
The Bitcoin ETFs saw $220M in net outflows on Thursday, breaking a big 2-day inflow streak; the ETH ETFs saw $167M in net outflows
The SEC set a pro-crypto agenda, unveiling rulemakings to define digital-asset offers/sales and ease listings on U.S. exchanges
Stripe + Paradigm revealed their Tempo blockchain aimed at low-cost stablecoin settlement with partners including Visa, Deutsche Bank, OpenAI
Kraken announced a buyout of Breakout, planning to integrate the trader-native platform into Kraken Pro
WLFI blacklisted Justin Sun‘s address from selling his 595M unlocked tokens, citing activity concerns that broke WLFI rules (WLFI +15% since the news)
Gary Gensler’s text messages from Oct 2022 to Sept 2023 have been “lost” according to a recent audit

In Corporate Treasuries

In Memes

Memecoin leaders are slightly green on the day; DOGE +1%, Shiba +1%, PEPE +1%, PENGU -1%, BONK +2%, TRUMP +1%, SPX +4%, and FARTCOIN -1%
NEET (+20%), BITTY (+30%), SPARK (+15%) and TOKABU (+13%) led onchain movers

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Here’s a rundown of major token, protocol and airdrop news from the day:

Pump Fun did another $12M in buybacks over the past week, representing 98% of their revenue
Myriad announced two new UX enhancements, including direct sign-in w/ MetaMask, Rabby & Rainbow wallets and easier bridging directly within Myriad, along with confirmation that USDC predictions will “be considered at TGE”
Arbitrum launched DRIP, its $40M DeFi incentive program, targeting leveraged looping with 24M ARB in rewards
Fireblocks launched a stablecoin payments network, connecting 40+ participants to streamline B2B stablecoin flows

🤖 AI x Crypto

Section dedicated to headlines in the AI sector of crypto:

Overall market cap even at $12.7B, leaders were mixed
FARTCOIN (-1%), VIRTUAL (+1%), TIBBIR (+5%), aixbt (+3%) & ai16z (+1%)
VADER (+33%) and VIRGEN (+22%) led top movers

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:

ETH NFT leaders were mixed; Punks +2% at 48.9 ETH, Pudgy -1% at 9.8, BAYC -1% at 9.1 ETH
HV-MTL up 230% were a notable top mover
Abstract NFTs were mostly red, led by Roach Racing (+7%)
Pudgy Penguins announced that OpenSea will be its official home, along with the PENGU token
The Pudgy Party soulbound token can now be claimed inside MetaMask portfolio
NFL All Day revamped its collector experience, rolling out verified digital autographed rookie highlight moments and partnering with four NFL teams on in-person activations to onboard more fans

Daily Debrief Newsletter

Start every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.

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September 7, 2025 0 comments

Crypto Trends

MetaMask Confirms mUSD Launch, Backed by M0 and Stripe’s Bridge

by admin August 21, 2025

MetaMask, the popular crypto wallet developed by Consensys, confirmed on Thursday it will debut its proprietary U.S. dollar token (mUSD) later this year, joining the booming stablecoin market.

“MetaMask USD is a critical step in bringing the world on-chain,” said Gal Eldar, product lead at MetaMask, in a blog post.

Stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrencies pegged to external assets like the U.S. dollar, have grown into a $250 billion market, often touted as a faster, cheaper option for international payments. Interest in the sector has accelerated since U.S. President Donald Trump signed the GENIUS Act into law, setting new federal standards for stablecoin issuers.

MetaMask’s stablecoin project was already known to be in the works due to a prematurely posted governance proposal earlier this month. In the official announcement, the firm said that the mUSD token will be launched first on Ethereum

and Consensys-developed layer-2 network Linea, and closely integrated within the app and services.

Users will be able to on-ramp fiat, swap between tokens, and move value across blockchains, with the stablecoin later becoming spendable through the MetaMask Card at Mastercard merchants worldwide. Further plans include extend utility across decentralized finance (DeFi) and payments.

The token is issued by U.S.-licensed issuer Bridge, now part of payments giant Stripe, and underpinned by stablecoin platform M0’s blockchain infrastructure.

“With MetaMask USD, users can bring their money onchain, put it to work, spend it almost anywhere, and use it like money should be used,” Eldar said. “It will allow us to cut through some of the most stubborn barriers in web3 and reduce both friction and costs for people onboarding directly into a self-custodial wallet.”

Custom stablecoin issuance

MetaMask’s stablecoin is the first example of the partnership between M0 and Bridge to help businesses roll out custom digital dollars.

The two firms said on Thursday the partnership combines Bridge’s regulatory and reserve management expertise with M0’s blockchain infrastructure designed for application-specific stablecoins.

The idea of application-specific stablecoins has been gaining traction as the market for digital dollars is booming with improving regulatory clarity. Payment applications, crypto wallets or DeFi protocols can create their own branded dollar token while outsourcing compliance, reserves and infrastructure to providers.

For instance, Paxos issues PayPal’s PYUSD token, while BitGo is behind the Trump-affiliated DeFi protocol World Liberty Financial’s USD1. Earlier this month, U.S. fintech Slash launched its own stablecoin with Bridge.

Partnering with M0 and Bridge, MetaMask can offer a built-in digital dollar for its users without managing the complex work of issuance, compliance and tech plumbing.

Zach Abrams, co-founder and CEO of Bridge, said that they reduced the development time for custom stablecoin issuance from “more than a year of complex integrations” to “a matter of weeks. This means apps like Metamask “can realize benefits more rapidly and efficiently than ever before.”

With the partnership, M0 and Bridge are now seeking to replicate the work on MetaMask’s token for more issuers.

“Applications want to control their dollar infrastructure,” M0 founder and CEO Luca Prosperi said in an interview with CoinDesk. “What is important is that they will not have to build it themselves.”

UPDATE (Aug. 21, 12:30 UTC): Adds MetaMask’s official stablecoin announcement, updates headline and lede.

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August 21, 2025 0 comments