In brief
- Stripe’s blockchain project Tempo has reportedly raised $500 million at a $5 billion valuation, in a Series A round co-led by Greenoaks and Thrive Capital.
- Tempo also hired Dankrad Feist, a leading Ethereum Foundation researcher, sparking debate across the crypto community.
- While Vitalik Buterin supported Feist’s move, others criticized it as a blow to open-source ideals in favor of corporate blockchains.
In a major show of force for Stripe’s upstart blockchain project Tempo, the company has reportedly raised $500 million—and nabbed one of the Ethereum network’s most prominent core developers, as well.
Tempo has raised the funds in a Series A round that now values the project at $5 billion, according to a Friday report in Fortune. The round was reportedly co-led by venture firm Greenoaks and Joshua Kushner’s Thrive Capital.
Stripe declined comment to Decrypt. Greenoaks and Thrive did not immediately respond to Decrypt’s requests for comment regarding the raise. Paradigm, the crypto venture firm that incubated Tempo alongside Stripe, also did not immediately reply to an inquiry.
While the funding round marks a significant early win for Tempo—a layer-1 blockchain that will support payment processor Stripe’s aggressive push into crypto—it was not the biggest news about the project that rocked Crypto Twitter on Friday.
That was the revelation that Tempo has successfully poached Dankrad Feist, a key contributor to the Ethereum network, to build out Stripe’s new chain.
Feist, a top researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, revealed Friday he had accepted Tempo’s offer, but will remain a research advisor to a handful of strategic initiatives at the nonprofit.
“I believe that the real world moment is now, and I want to make sure we do not miss this window to touch normal people’s lives everywhere in the world,” Feist said, arguing his decision to join Tempo will enable him to more effectively bring crypto payments to the masses.
While the move was publicly blessed by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, who wished Feist luck in his new job, other members of the crypto community were far less enthused.
“Dankrad leaving Ethereum is a terrible look for open-source vs. corporate blockchains,” Andy, co-host of The Rollup, a popular crypto-focused podcast, said. “Huge L for the entire community.”
Gwart, another popular crypto influencer, likened Feist’s career shift to the notion of environmental activist Greta Thunberg accepting a position at oil giant British Petroleum.
Laurence Day, co-founder of Wildcat, a decentralized Ethereum lending protocol, compared the news of Feist’s new gig to a controversy that brewed last year when the software developer and another colleague, Justin Drake, accepted advisory positions at Ethereum restaking protocol Eigenlayer alongside their Ethereum Foundation duties.
Community backlash about potential conflicts of interest was significant enough that Feist and Drake both abandoned the advisor positions.
“That Eigenlayer advisorship looks pretty tame by comparison now, doesn’t it?” Day reminisced today.
Ryan Sean Adams, another prominent crypto influencer and noted Ethereum backer, joked that Friday’s news did not break his faith in the decentralization-focused network—but that such a day could come soon.
“If Vitalik joins Tempo, I’m out,” Adams said.
Editor’s note: This story was updated after publication to note that Stripe declined comment.
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