🎙️ Ep. 61. Tempo Tesnet, EVM, and the Race to Onchain Payments

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This week on Tokenized: Simon Taylor and Cuy Sheffield are joined by Joey Isaacson, CEO of Nook, the self-custodial yield app that has processed over $500 million in transactions, and Alex Gluchowski, Co-Founder and CEO of Matter Labs, the team behind ZK Sync and pioneers of ZK scaling on Ethereum. The conversation covers tempo's testnet launch, EVM network effects, the UAE's emergence as a crypto hub, and why stable coins are replacing wires for high-value transfers.

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Key Takeaways 💬 

Payments Infrastructure Gets the "Stripe Treatment"

Tempo's testnet launch drew notable praise from builders who recognize the gap between blockchain capabilities and enterprise-grade developer experience. As Alex Gluchowski from Matter Labs observed after using the testnet: "I told my team that Ethereum, for the first time, is in the hands of an adult product team, and we're going to learn a lot from tempo."

The comparison to Stripe resonated throughout the discussion. Gluchowski, drawing on 20 years of development experience, noted the testnet delivers "everything you would expect from Stripe, but applied to the blockchain world for the first time" - interactive documentation, pre-populated authentication, and payment flows that simply work.

Key features partners are citing as solving real hurdles:

• Dedicated payment lanes with guaranteed block space, ensuring payroll and settlement aren't disrupted by meme coin launches or deleveraging events

• TIP-20 extending ERC-20 with memo fields for reconciliation - a fundamental requirement for any tradfi operator

• Stablecoin native gas eliminating the friction of holding native tokens for fees

• Sub-second deterministic finality meeting institutional SLA requirements

The EVM's "Undeniable Network Effects"

The discussion surfaced a strategic insight for financial institutions evaluating chain infrastructure: EVM compatibility has crossed from a technical preference to a market requirement.

Joey Isaacson from Nook framed the EVM simply: "From a startup's perspective, the EVM is the back end of the financial internet - all of finance can be pointed towards one central ledger."

Gluchowski traced Matter Labs' journey to full EVM compatibility: "Even tiny differences in your deployment scripts, testing scripts, execution environment - they just break the experience. If you have 1% divergence, that's basically unusable cross-chain."

The team's latest ZK proof systems now deliver complete EVM byte-code execution - a milestone that took years to achieve.

For institutions, the implication is clear: major deposit token implementations from JP Morgan (Quorum/Kinexys), Citi, and HSBC all run EVM-compatible infrastructure. Developer talent, auditor availability, and interoperability all favor this approach. As Gluchowski noted: "EVM is going to win big against any other non-EVM approach, because the talent of developers is a very hard market, but the auditor's market is even tighter."

UAE Establishes Full-Stack Crypto Infrastructure

The UAE's regulatory momentum this week extends beyond licensing headlines. Circle obtained an operational license for USDC services, Tether gained token recognition enabling USDT use by licensed ADGM entities, and Binance secured the most comprehensive license yet, covering exchange, clearing, and brokerage.

The larger story is the ADI Chain announcement at Abu Dhabi Blockchain Finance Week. Powered by ZK Sync and backed by IHC (a major Abu Dhabi-based investment holding company) in cooperation with First Abu Dhabi Bank, the project secured central bank approval for the first self-custodial, regulated Dirham stablecoin.

As Gluchowski explained: "UAE is becoming the global leader in adoption of crypto, not just as a speculative asset, but actual payment rails and full stack financial system that will be going into operationalizing finance."

The partnerships with BlackRock and Franklin Templeton on tokenizing both US and local securities signal ambitions beyond regional scope.

Instant Settlement: The Domestic Use Case Nobody Talks About

Interactive Brokers' launch of instant account funding via stablecoins through Zero Hash spotlights a use case often overlooked in stablecoin discussions: domestic, high-value account-to-account transfers.

Cuy Sheffield provided context: "A stablecoin is a million times better than a wire. If I've got six different accounts - prediction market account, brokerage account, Nook account, Wallet account - being able to move money seamlessly between those accounts, not just up to $1,000 a day, but what if I want to move $10,000 and what if it's a Sunday?"

Joey Isaacson confirmed the demand is real: "Instant settlement is something that we do not yet have, but are very, very interested in, based on just our customers demanding it every day."

The friction remains at the on/off ramp layer - 85% of Nook's transactions flow through traditional payment rails like ACH or debit cards.

For banks evaluating their stablecoin strategy, the guidance from the discussion was direct: "Be the world's best off ramp and on ramp. Be the highest volume, highest liquidity, most compliant, most secure version of that."

Looking Ahead

Regulatory clarity continues building. The CFTC cleared ETH, Bitcoin, and USDC for use as collateral in derivatives markets - unlocking the collateral mobility use case institutions have long pursued.

And as Gluchowski noted, "the GENIUS Act plus CLARITY Act will really cement the institutional regulatory landscape in the US as kind of irreversibly crypto friendly."

Meanwhile, talent acquisition signals the shift from strategy to execution. Lead Bank's acquisition of Loop Crypto marks what may be the first US bank acquiring a crypto company and team, following Stripe's pattern of serial acqui-hires throughout the year.

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