Feist Transitions to Stripe’s Tempo Project
Dankrad Feist, a veteran researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, has joined Tempo — a Layer-1 blockchain built by Stripe in collaboration with Paradigm, designed to power payments and stablecoin transactions.
Feist announced the move on Friday, noting that he will remain a research adviser to the Ethereum Foundation, contributing to network scaling, user experience (UX) improvements, and the continued development of “blobs” — a feature that helps free up blockspace by temporarily storing transaction data off-chain.
“Tempo’s open-source technology can easily integrate back into Ethereum, benefiting the entire ecosystem,” Feist said. “Ethereum and Tempo are strongly aligned, as they are built with the same permissionless ideals in mind.”
Feist emphasized that the partnership between Ethereum and Tempo could foster greater interoperability and innovation in blockchain-based payments.
Community Divided Over Tempo’s Role
The announcement has sparked mixed reactions across the crypto community. While some praised Feist’s new role as a sign of cross-ecosystem collaboration, others expressed concern that Ethereum is losing one of its key contributors during a pivotal year for network upgrades and governance changes.
Critics also questioned the need for another Layer-1 blockchain, given Ethereum’s existing infrastructure and growing suite of Layer-2 scaling networks.
“No one wants another chain,” said Joe Petrich, head of engineering at NFT platform Courtyard, in response to Stripe CEO Patrick Collison’s announcement.
Ethereum Foundation researcher Devansh Mehta also raised concerns that app-specific Layer-1s like Tempo risk centralization and may face regulatory challenges, suggesting instead that Stripe could have built Tempo as an Ethereum Layer-2 network.
Feist’s move comes amid ongoing debate within the Ethereum ecosystem about how to scale efficiently without fragmenting liquidity or network value. While Layer-2 rollups continue to attract users, some developers argue that their success could reduce Ethereum’s base layer revenue and pressure ETH’s market value.
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