Paradigm & Stripe Unveil Tempo L1 Blockchain

Justin Sun vs WLFI: $500M Frozen | Pokemon TCG Crypto Craze

Marco Manoppo & Karon Pangestu
September 05, 2025

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Good Morning.

We’re truly only entering the start of the stablecoin, payments, and RWA era. I predict a ludicrous amount of competition and liquidity segregation in the next 48 months as institutions and other conglomerates compete to capture a part of the market. It just doesn’t make sense to leak so much value to the underlying infrastructure when you can own the entire stack. Yachtzee!

In Today's Email:

What Matters: Paradigm & Stripe unveil Tempo blockchain ⏱️
Founders Highlight: Tuomas of Collector Crypt 👨
Deal Flows: Lead Bank $80M Series B 💰️

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Narratives: Pokemon TCG…

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WHAT MATTERS

Stripe and Paradigm Announce Tempo Blockchain

State of play: Stripe and Paradigm launched Tempo, a payments-first blockchain designed to make stablecoins and real-world payments work at scale.

Tempo is incubated jointly by Stripe and Paradigm, with backing and design input from major players across AI, fintech, and e-commerce.
Unlike trading-oriented blockchains, Tempo is purpose-built for stablecoin payments: payroll, remittances, microtransactions, embedded accounts, and tokenized deposits.
Paradigm frames Tempo as a rare incubation, intended to be a complementary layer that pulls enterprises on-chain during the surge in stablecoin adoption.

Why it matters: This is the first time that the biggest crypto fund in the world has joined forces with the biggest payment network to create a blockchain.

Our take: The financial incentive for Paradigm and Stripe to own the stack vs just utilizing Ethereum/Solana is too great. Don’t believe all the other yapping they made.

For builders and investors: Understand that in crypto, permissionlessness is often a double-edged sword — you need to be constantly innovating even if you’re ahead, as the technology is so easily forkable.

BUILDER-INVESTOR HIGHLIGHT

Tuomas Holmberg of Collector Crypt

Intro: Tuomas Holmberg is the Founder and CEO of Collector Crypt, a Solana-based platform that tokenized physical collectible trading cards (including Pokémon TCG) as NFTs.

Previous background: Before founding Collector Crypt, Tuomas Holmberg had a diverse background as a serial entrepreneur in the high-tech and biotech sectors, where he founded multiple early-stage companies and raised over $100M in funding.

He holds a degree in Physics from Caltech and an MBA from the USC Marshall School of Business.

The big idea: Collector Crypt enables the trading and management of these cards on the blockchain, creating a digital-first global marketplace for them.

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INSIGHTS

WLFI Blacklists Justin Sun’s Token

Trump-backed World Liberty Financial blacklisted Justin Sun’s wallet, alleging that the Tron founder had moved $9M worth of WLFI tokens.

Allegedly, Sun might have been selling WLFI tokens on his HTX exchange.
As a result, WLFI blacklisted 540M in unlocked tokens and 2.4B in locked tokens, amounting to $500M+ worth of WLFI tokens.
Sun has since released a statement asking for his funds to be unfrozen.

DEAL FLOWS

Lead Bank $70M Series B

Deal flows soared this week - we saw $240M+ in deals 💼

Lead Bank, a fintech and crypto-focused lender, has raised $80M in its Series B, pushing its valuation to $1.47B.

Lead Bank is a 97-year-old community bank that was acquired in 2022 by a team of tech executives.
New investors in the round include ICONIQ and Greycroft — alongside existing investors such as a16z, Ribbit, Coatue, Khosla, and Zeev in its cap table.
In April, the bank partnered with Stripe and Visa to provide banking services.

Deal flows in the past week:

Maiga AI, $2M Strategic Round
Reflect, $3.75M Seed Round
Credit Coop, $4.5M Seed Round
Aria Protocol, $15M Seed Round
Tangany, $11.64M Series A
Kita AI, $18M Series A
Utila, $22M Series A+
OrangeX, $20M Series B
Centi, $0.3M Private Round
Boundless, $13.7M Seed Round
Everlyn, $15M Private Round
Etherealize, $40M Private Round
Almanak, $2.5M Public Token Sale

QUICK BITES

Public companies hold more than 1 million BTC.
DeFi Development holds more than 2 million SOL.
Fireblocks launches stablecoin payments network.
REX-Osprey poised to bring the first Dogecoin ETF.
World Liberty and American Bitcoin drop over 20%.
BitMine acquires $65m worth of ETH via Galaxy Digital.
ETH ICO participants moves $646M to staking address.
Bunni cites smart contract rounding error for $8.4M exploit.
ECB Chief urges stricter oversight on non-EU stablecoin issuers.
Nasdaq tightens scrutiny of companies raising cash to buy crypto.
South Korea caps crypto lending at 20% interest, bans leveraged loans.
World Liberty blacklists Justin Sun’s wallet after he moves $9M in WLFI.
ETH’s monthly spot volume tops BTC on CEX for the first time in 7 years.
India leads global crypto adoption, APAC emerges as fastest-growing market.
Stripe and Paradigm introduce a payments-focused blockchain called Tempo.

NOTEWORTHY READS & MEME

Jito’s read on $JTO tokenomics update.
Rekt’s read on the Eureka founder phishing case.
DBA Crypto’s read on digital cash: making stablecoins private and usable.

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Disclaimer: All the information presented in this publication and its affiliates is strictly for educational purposes only. It should not be construed or taken as financial, legal, investment, or any other form of advice.