Stripe Pushes Deeper Into Stablecoins With Open Issuance and Tempo Blockchain

Stripe has taken another step into crypto with the launch of Open Issuance, a platform that lets businesses create their own stablecoins. The announcement was made on September 30 as part of a major product update in New York.

Open Issuance was developed through Bridge, a company Stripe bought in October 2024 for $1.1 billion. Bridge had already built infrastructure for issuing and transferring digital money across blockchains. Its clients included SpaceX, Coinbase and Stellar. 

Stripe is now using that technology to let any business design a branded token, manage reserves through partners such as BlackRock and Fidelity and handle redemptions on demand.

The company also rolled out new features tied to stablecoins. U.S. businesses can now hold stablecoin balances in their financial accounts, pay for subscriptions with stablecoins and instantly convert between currencies. 

They can also issue cards, both virtual and physical, that draw from those balances. Stripe said the features are live in the U.S. today and will come to the U.K. soon.

Zach Abrams, co-founder and CEO of Bridge, said the goal is to give companies control over their own tokens. “If money movement is core to your business, you should build with stablecoins. But don’t build on top of someone else’s coin. 

With Open Issuance, businesses can build on top of stablecoins that they customize and control, so that the benefits of this important technology flow directly to the people and businesses using them,” Abrams said.

The timing of the launch lines up with strong demand. Stablecoin supply has grown almost 60% in the past year. Transaction volumes jumped 50% year-over-year in 2025, according to Artemis. Active users also surged, rising 53% to 30 million. The market has expanded from around $205 billion last year to more than $290 billion by late September.

Stripe already processes over $1.4 trillion in payments annually. By adding tools like Open Issuance and stablecoin balances, the company is trying to expand its role as the market evolves.

Tempo Blockchain Aims at High-Speed Stablecoin Payments

Stripe is not only offering tools for issuing tokens. Earlier this month, it also introduced its own blockchain. On September 4, Stripe and Paradigm unveiled Tempo, a new layer-1 chain designed for stablecoin payments.

Tempo is built for speed and scale. It runs over 100,000 transactions per second and confirms transfers in less than a second. The chain separates everyday payments from more complex smart contracts, which Stripe says makes it more efficient.

The network is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine, so developers can build with familiar tools. It also comes with an automated market maker that converts stablecoins instantly. 

Businesses can use any stablecoin for payments or even for gas fees. Tempo supports privacy features as well, with compliance tools built in for regulators.

Stripe has brought on a list of big partners to help test Tempo. They include Deutsche Bank, Nubank, OpenAI, Revolut, Shopify, Standard Chartered, Visa and Anthropic. 

Jack Forestell, Visa’s chief product and strategy officer, said the industry is moving toward more connections between different blockchains. “The future will be multi-chain,” Forestell said.

The debut of Tempo follows Circle’s launch of Arc, a stablecoin-focused blockchain, in August. With both companies aiming to provide core infrastructure, the competition to define the next phase of stablecoin payments is heating up.

Competition, Regulation and What Comes Next for Stripe

The stablecoin race is becoming crowded. Traditional finance firms are entering the space, alongside fintech and crypto startups. JPMorgan has launched its JPMD token. Société Générale rolled out USDCV. Fiserv is preparing FIUSD. 

Infrastructure firms like Paxos and Agora are expanding, while startups such as Bastion have raised millions from Coinbase, Sony and Samsung to build competing platforms.

Market forecasts show how high expectations have grown. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has suggested the market for U.S. dollar stablecoins could top $2 trillion by 2028. Standard Chartered also expects $2 trillion within three years, driven by legislation such as the GENIUS Act. 

Citi’s research points to $1.9 trillion in a base case, with up to $4 trillion possible. JPMorgan’s team is more cautious, seeing growth only to $500 billion by 2028, arguing that today’s infrastructure cannot yet support larger numbers.

Despite those mixed predictions, inflows have been strong. Industry data shows net flows of $56.5 billion in the last six months, with almost $46 billion coming in the third quarter alone. Circle’s $USDC has doubled to over $70 billion, while Tether’s $USDT remains the leader with more than $175 billion in circulation.

Stripe is preparing to compete not only on technology but also on compliance. Industry reports suggest the company is seeking a U.S. national trust charter and a trust license in New York. That would place it under some of the strictest banking rules. Paxos, Ripple  and Circle are all chasing similar approvals as the sector comes under closer federal oversight.

Will Gaybrick, Stripe’s president of technology and business, said the company’s role is to take advanced ideas and make them usable at scale. He described the focus on stablecoins and artificial intelligence as a natural extension. “Our goal is to bring frontier technology out of the experimental and into the mainstream,” he said.

Unlike Circle or Tether, Stripe has said it has no plans to issue its own branded coin. Instead, it wants to act as the backbone for businesses that do. That means charging service fees and offering infrastructure, rather than competing directly with issuers.

Stripe has also tied its stablecoin work to AI. On September 29, the company launched the Agentic Commerce Protocol in partnership with OpenAI. The system powers “Instant Checkout” in ChatGPT and lets merchants sell through AI agents with one integration. The protocol is being tested with partners such as Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity and Vercel.

Alongside these efforts, Stripe rolled out a range of new tools for merchants. They include Stripe Billing for subscriptions and usage-based pricing, an app-to-web payments flow for iOS and Link, a wallet that now supports buy-now-pay-later services with Klarna. 

Stripe also expanded its fraud prevention product, Stripe Radar and added more tax compliance tools that now work in over 100 countries.

Phantom has already issued the first stablecoin on Open Issuance, called CASH. MetaMask is preparing mUSD and Hyperliquid has USDH. Other projects are lined up, too, showing how quickly Stripe’s new platform is being adopted.

As the market grows, so does regulatory attention. In the U.S., proposals such as the GENIUS Act and the Stable Act are under discussion. They would set requirements for reserves, audits and anti-money laundering controls. 

Regulators in Europe and Australia are also exploring new frameworks. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has looked at how tokens can be used as collateral.

For Stripe, the strategy is clear. It wants to provide the rails on which stablecoins move, not compete to issue one of its own. By combining Open Issuance, Tempo and its traditional payments network, Stripe is positioning itself as a one-stop provider for businesses that want to bring stablecoins into their operations.