DoorDash to Pilot Stablecoin Merchant Payouts on Tempo

DoorDash will run a pilot to pay merchants using stablecoins on the Tempo blockchain, starting with merchant disbursements intended to shorten settlement times and reduce cross-border costs. The company operates a marketplace in more than 40 countries that connects consumers, merchants and delivery workers known as Dashers. The pilot aims to address delays and foreign-exchange volatility in payments to merchants and could expand to contractor and driver payouts later.

Tempo is a payments-focused blockchain that says it was incubated by Stripe and the venture firm Paradigm. The protocol offers sub-second finality, dollar-denominated fee predictability, reserved blockspace for payments, private payment zones and account abstraction that supports batching and fee sponsorship. Stripe has integrated Tempo into parts of its money-management infrastructure, enabling businesses to hold, send and receive stablecoins through Stripe in more than 100 countries.

Coastal Bank, a regulated sponsor bank, will add stablecoin-native infrastructure alongside its existing rails for the Tempo rollout. ARQ, a Latin American financial platform, will run payment infrastructure on Tempo for customers in Mexico, Colombia, Argentina and Brazil. Tempo framed DoorDash’s pilot as an early production use case for merchant disbursements and said the approach could be applied to other payout flows as the architecture and regulatory clarity develop.

Andy Fang, DoorDash co-founder, wrote in the Tempo announcement that “there’s real promise with stablecoins transforming financial infrastructure, not just in America, but globally. We want to be a proactive participant and not just passive.” The company indicated it will prioritize payout flows where faster, lower-cost settlement produces the clearest operational benefit.

Tempo also launched a Stablecoin Advisory practice to help companies evaluate use cases, design custody and compliance systems, and move projects from prototype to production. The service is offered to firms seeking to integrate stablecoin rails while meeting regulatory and operational requirements.

A study by BVNK, Coinbase and Artemis found more than $300 billion in stablecoins in circulation, with growing use as a settlement rail for commerce, payouts and treasury movements. The pilot takes place while U.S. federal rulemaking on crypto remains incomplete; the GENIUS Act has passed, but broader legislation covering the sector has stalled in the Senate.