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Tempo, the payments-focused Layer 1 blockchain, on Wednesday introduced Tempo Zones, a new feature that lets enterprises run private stablecoin transactions on parallel blockchains connected to Tempo's mainnet.
The product targets a core friction point for institutions exploring stablecoin rails: public blockchains broadcast every transaction by default. A company processing payroll, for example, would expose individual salary data on-chain, while a payment processor would leak confidential merchant volume with every settlement.
"The parties to a transaction should see the details, the broad public should not, all while retaining the usability and interoperability of stablecoin rails," the Tempo team wrote in a blog post.
Zones serve as private execution environments where participants can transact without publicly revealing information. Assets remain interoperable with Tempo's mainnet, meaning users inside a Zone can still access on-ramps, off-ramps, and decentralized exchange liquidity on the base layer.
The Zone operator, which can be the enterprise itself or a third-party infrastructure provider, has visibility into all transactions within its Zone for compliance and reporting purposes, but does not have custody of funds. Assets are locked in a smart contract on Tempo's mainnet and can only be withdrawn by the owning user.
Tempo said enterprises managing payroll are among the first users of Zones, with broader production deployments planned in phases. The company is currently working with design partners across payroll, treasury, settlement, and tokenized deposit use cases.
The launch adds another layer to Tempo's pitch to institutional users. The blockchain, which Stripe and Paradigm first unveiled in September 2025, went live on mainnet in March alongside the Machine Payments Protocol, an open standard for AI agent-to-service payments co-authored with Stripe. It raised $500 million in a Series A at a $5 billion valuation in October 2025, and recently onboarded Visa, Stripe, and Zodia Custody as validators.
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