A–Z reference

Tempo glossary

The vocabulary of the Tempo payments blockchain, defined answer-first and cross-linked. Where a term is a tracked project, contract, or standard, it links straight to its sourced dossier.

Access Keys: Access keys (TIP-1011) are scoped, delegated signing credentials on Tempo.
Account Abstraction: Tempo provides native, protocol-level account abstraction — fee sponsorship, batched calls, scoped access keys, passkey/P256 signatures, and parallel nonces — without requiring ERC-4337 bundlers or paymasters.

Commonware: Commonware is the open-source library that provides Tempo's Simplex BFT consensus.

Deterministic finality: Deterministic finality means that once a Tempo block is marked final — in well under a second — its transactions are permanently guaranteed and cannot be re-orged.
DLUSD: DLUSD is Deel's dollar-backed stablecoin, issued exclusively on Tempo and redeemable 1:1, with transactions targeting $0.001.

EIP-2718: EIP-2718 is the Ethereum standard for typed transaction envelopes.
EVM-compatible: EVM-compatible means Tempo runs standard Ethereum bytecode and tooling: it is built on Reth, targets the Osaka hard fork, and supports the full opcode set except that BALANCE, SELFBALANCE, and CALLVALUE return 0 because there is no native token.

Fee AMM: The Fee AMM is a protocol-native automated market maker used only to convert transaction fees between stablecoins.
Fee Manager: The Fee Manager is the Tempo system contract (at 0xfeec…) that handles fee-token selection and conversion.

Machine Payments Protocol (MPP): The Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) is an open standard for machine-to-machine payments, co-authored by Stripe and Tempo.
Moderato (testnet): Moderato is the name of Tempo's public testnet (chain ID 42431), launched 9 December 2025.
MPP Session: An MPP Session collapses many micropayments into exactly two on-chain transactions: an 'open' that escrows funds and a 'settle' that submits a final signed voucher.

Passkey authentication: Passkey authentication lets users authorise Tempo transactions with biometrics such as Face ID, Touch ID, or a fingerprint.
pathUSD: pathUSD (at 0x20c0…) is an optional neutral quote token for the Stablecoin DEX.
Payment Lanes: Payment Lanes are protocol-reserved blockspace for TIP-20 transfers, separated from general EVM execution by a distinct gas limit.
Payments Directory: The Payments Directory (at mpp.dev) is the registry of services that accept MPP payments.
Permissioned validators: Tempo launched with a permissioned validator set — operators are approved rather than open to anyone — with a stated roadmap toward permissionless validation.

Reth: Reth is the high-performance EVM execution client SDK that Tempo's execution layer is built on, targeting the Osaka hard fork for full Solidity and tooling (Foundry, Hardhat) compatibility.

Simplex BFT: Simplex BFT is Tempo's consensus algorithm, provided by the Commonware library.
Stablecoin DEX: The Stablecoin DEX is an enshrined, singleton orderbook exchange built directly into the Tempo protocol (at 0xdec0…).
Stablecoin gas: Stablecoin gas is Tempo's model of paying transaction fees in USD-denominated TIP-20 stablecoins instead of a native token.
Sub-blocks: Sub-blocks were a planned mechanism letting validators reserve blockspace across blocks they don't propose.

Tempo Transactions: Tempo Transactions are Tempo's custom EIP-2718 envelope (type 0x76) that replaces EIP-1559 type-2 for native features: configurable fee token, fee sponsorship, batch calls, scheduled execution, access keys, parallel nonces, and passkey/P256 signatures.
Tempo Zones: Tempo Zones are private, EVM-compatible parallel blockchains connected to Tempo Mainnet.
TIP-1000 (anti-state-bloat): TIP-1000 is Tempo's anti-state-bloat gas schedule: new storage slots and new accounts cost 250,000 gas and contract deployment costs 1,000 gas per byte — far above Ethereum — nudging applications to pre-fund accounts and avoid bloating state.
TIP-20: TIP-20 is Tempo's native token standard — an ERC-20 superset purpose-built for stablecoins.
TIP-20 Factory: The TIP-20 Factory (at 0x20fc…) is the system contract that mints every TIP-20 token via createToken().
TIP-403: TIP-403 is Tempo's shared compliance policy registry (at 0x403c…).

USDC.e: USDC.e is a USD-denominated stablecoin available on Tempo.
USDT0: USDT0 is a USD-denominated stablecoin available natively on Tempo.

Virtual Addresses: Virtual (forwarding) addresses are a protocol-level construct (TIP-1022) that lets a business register one master wallet and derive unlimited customer-specific deposit addresses offline.
VRF leader election: VRF leader election uses a Verifiable Random Function, embedded in Commonware's Simplex variants, to pick block proposers unpredictably without sacrificing safety or responsiveness.

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