Stripe talks a big game about Tempo in its annual report, as it should. It deserves credit for being early to embrace stablecoins. But this should be seen as a warning at every enterprise partner considering using Tempo, whether they are e-com platforms or FinTechs or card schemes. Stripe also just announced a new $159b valuation, a big number that requires not just profit but profit growth to hold up. If Tempo gains network effects, Stripe will have to monetize it. That monetization will come at someone else's expense, and since Tempo is a permissioned network, a single entity will have universal power to do what it wants: Raise fees, change the tech, censor users, etc. And before anyone jumps my throat to argue "but...blockchain" (which it isn't) and "Stripe wouldn't do that" (tell that to their shareholders) you should understand that the scenario I described is the historical arc of almost every major payment or clearing system in the world today. Most began as consortium-like plays, many literally as non-profits. But as they grew in importance, they realized that they had power over their founding members, and exercised it. Nobody should be more concerned about joining any permissioned network than Visa and Mastercard. First, something like Tempo allows Stripe to invert the current pricing power structure in cards. More importantly, both V and MC started out as non-profit consortiums meant to enable banks. They were the Tempo of their time. Today, their combined market cap is higher than that of every single bank that founded them. Game recognize game. And permissionless networks that value neutrality for the win. This isn't an ideological stance. It's business logic.
