Tempo, the layer 1 blockchain incubated by Stripe and Paradigm and designed specifically for stablecoin-based financial products, participated in this year’s editions of Tech Week Colombia and Tech Week São Paulo as part of its expansion strategy in Latin America.
The company hosted its own events in Bogotá and São Paulo, and spent both weeks meeting with payments companies, neobanks, remittance providers, funds and financial institutions.
Unlike most general-purpose blockchains, where payments are another use case, Tempo was designed from the ground up to process stablecoin payments at scale.
“Moving money between countries still goes through a chain of intermediaries, can take days and has costs that the sender cannot foresee. In Tempo, a stablecoin payment is settled almost instantly, with commissions of less than a cent paid in dollar-denominated stablecoins,” explained Jan Heinvirta, Latam GTM Lead at Tempo.
Among its current clients is ARQ, a financial services platform with more than 2 million clients in Mexico, Colombia, Argentina and Brazil, which uses Tempo to make cross-border payments faster and at a lower cost.
Colombia and Brazil: two different versions of stablecoin adoption
Being present at both Tech Weeks revealed two ecosystems with their own dynamics. Colombia, according to Jan Heinvirta, “is at the center of cross-border corridors where stablecoins are already the best answer for moving money.”
The companies the Tempo team met with in Bogotá were already using stablecoins in production, and the questions were not conceptual but operational: settlement times, regulatory compliance, and what happens on the entry and exit ramps of the system. Brazil, on the other hand, presented a different profile: more institutional conversations with established financial companies and an agenda that had already surpassed the cross-border use case.
“In most of Latin America, the conversation about stablecoins still revolves around moving money between countries. In Brazil, it has already gone further,” noted Jan Heinvirta.
The topic that dominated the conversations in São Paulo was the tokenization of assets: several local stablecoins already operate in the Brazilian market and more are being launched, while the financial sector begins to ask what other assets can be represented on a blockchain.
For Tempo, this difference in maturity between both markets also defines its approach: Colombia as a gateway to regional remittance and payment corridors; Brazil as access to a sophisticated institutional market.
Physical presence as a competitive advantage in the region
Beyond concrete business results, both weeks opened new conversations and advanced ongoing processes. However, Tempo’s main takeaway from the two Tech Weeks was simpler: being present in person makes a decisive difference in the way the company works with its local partners.
“Before that week, Tempo in Colombia was a name that people had read about. Afterwards, we were a team that people had known. In this region, that difference is most of the work,” summarized Jan Heinvirta.
Tempo’s vision for Latin America over the next year is for the region’s leading fintechs to settle volume on its network, using the platform’s stablecoin products for global payments, access to dollars and yield opportunities.
