Tempo unveils pragmatic privacy solution called Zones, a way to run permissioned parallel blockchains

Tempo, the Layer 1 blockchain developed by Stripe and Paradigm, is rolling out a new privacy feature called Zones. The solution is specifically targeting business use cases like payroll, treasury management, and payment settlements that need more confidentiality than fully public blockchains can provide.

“Privacy on blockchains today usually comes with a bad tradeoff,” Tempo wrote on X. “Public chains expose sensitive business data despite pseudonymity and most private systems give up interoperability and shared liquidity or create operational complexity. Zones are built to give businesses privacy without cutting them off from the rest of Tempo.”

Zones will offer private execution environments that operate as parallel blockchains connected to Tempo Mainnet, according to a statement. Transactions inside a Zone stay private, though assets and funds will remain fully interoperable with the Tempo L1, other Zones, onramps, and liquidity pools.

Each Zone will be managed by a trusted entity, like a financial institution or infrastructure provider. These operators will manage Zone transaction processing and system availability, and be able to see all activity in their environments and apply access controls.

“This is by design: a regulated institution running a zone may have additional compliance or reporting requirements. Enterprises can exercise tighter control by operating their own zone. Users of the zone can only see their own transactions and balances. Everyone else only sees cryptographic proofs of the zone’s validity,” Tempo wrote, explaining the tradeoffs involved in a pragmatic privacy solution that requires some privileged access. 

However, Zone operators will “not control the underlying assets.” Any funds are locked in a zone contract on Tempo Mainnet “can only be withdrawn by the user owning the asset,” the post clarifies. All Tempo assets natively enable “issuer-defined compliance controls,” including white-listing and freeze capabilities, which will also be enforceable across Zones.

Tempo said it is currently building the Zone infrastructure in collaboration with a small group of design partners.

The move comes on the heels of Tempo’s mainnet in mid-March, which was joined by more than 100 integrated service providers, including Alchemy, Dune Analytics, Anthropic, OpenAI, and Shopify. More recently, institutional heavyweights including Visa, Stripe, and Standard Chartered announced they were joining as Tempo validators.

Tempo is specifically designed for stablecoins and institutional use cases. As part of its mandate, the Tempo team also unveiled the Machine Payments Protocol, an open standard designed for the nascent agentic economy.

The project was last valued at $5 billion following its $500 million Series A  in September.

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