Corporate Blockchains for Payments Are Likely to Work

Why Stripe, Circle, and Tether's new networks might define the next era of money

Omid Malekan recently argued that chains like Stripe’s Tempo, Circle’s Arc, and Tether’s Plasma are doomed to fail. His thesis: these chains lack credible neutrality, will fragment the ecosystem, and ultimately betray blockchain’s core promise of decentralization. It’s a thoughtful critique rooted in crypto’s foundational ideals.

But I think he’s wrong. Corporate blockchains will likely succeed - not despite their corporate backing, but in part because of it. Here’s why.

1. Neutrality exists on a spectrum, not as an absolute

The assumption that blockchains must be perfectly neutral to be useful misunderstands how trust infrastructure evolves. Neutrality isn’t binary - it’s a design choice that sits on a spectrum.

Consider the internet itself: AWS, Cloudflare, and DNS root servers are centralized chokepoints, yet the internet remains one of humanity’s most transformative technologies. TCP/IP succeeded not because every layer was neutral, but because enough layers were open to enable innovation at the edges.

Corporate blockchains can follow the same pattern - providing verifiable settlement, programmable rails, and interoperable standards while leaving ultimate neutrality to base layers like Ethereum. This isn’t a betrayal; it’s division of labor.

The question isn’t whether these chains are as neutral as Ethereum. It’s whether they’re neutral enough to unlock massive value - and transparent enough that users can verify claims and exit if needed. For most payment use cases, the answer is yes.

2. The efficiency gains are real- just not where people look

The critique that blockchains can’t compete on speed or cost with centralized systems focuses on the wrong metric. Raw throughput isn’t the bottleneck in modern payments.

The real inefficiency is layered intermediation: correspondent banks, FX providers, compliance middleware, and reconciliation systems. Each layer adds time, cost, and failure points.

Consider a cross-border payment today:

• Takes 3-5 days to settle

• Costs 5-7% for remittances

• Requires multiple currency conversions

• Needs manual reconciliation across systems

• Fails 5-10% of the time, requiring human intervention

A stablecoin payment on a purpose-built blockchain:

• Settles in seconds with finality

• Costs a few cents in fees

• Eliminates reconciliation because the ledger is shared

• Enables atomic delivery-versus-payment for tokenized assets

• Fails deterministically or not at all

This isn’t about being faster than Visa domestically. It’s about collapsing payment stacks where traditional rails have irreducible complexity. Corporate chains aren’t trying to beat Visa at card processing. They’re trying to replace SWIFT, correspondent banking, and the multi-day settlement cycles that still dominate B2B and cross-border flows.

3. Progressive decentralization is a feature, not a bug

Starting permissioned and moving toward openness is a proven path. Ethereum itself launched with a small set of known miners. Most successful networks begin with concentrated control and expand over time.

The value proposition of corporate chains isn’t static neutrality from day one - it’s credible evolution:

• Begin permissioned for compliance, reliability, and regulatory clarity

• Transition governance over time to consortium or open validator sets

• Interoperate with public networks via bridges and standards (IBC, LayerZero, etc.)

Tempo or Arc might start as “semi-closed,” but can open in layers - settlement, verification, API access - depending on which trust surfaces matter most to users.

More importantly, these chains will face pressure to interoperate because their business models demand it. Stripe doesn’t make money by locking developers into Tempo; it makes money by processing more payments across all rails. Circle doesn’t profit by hoarding USDC on Arc; it profits by getting USDC into every ecosystem - DeFi, CEXs, enterprise treasuries.

If these chains can’t talk to each other - and to Ethereum - they’ll fail to capture the network effects that make payment rails valuable in the first place. Interoperability isn’t altruism; it’s survival.

4. User experience will drive adoption, not ideology

Crypto-native systems are optimized for freedom. Corporate systems are optimized for usability, trust, and regulatory certainty.

End users - merchants, businesses, governments - don’t wake up asking for “credible neutrality.” They ask: Can I pay, get paid, and stay compliant?

The companies launching these chains already control most of the stablecoin economy:

• Stripe serves millions of businesses who integrate payments APIs daily

• Circle has institutional trust, banking rails, and public-company compliance infrastructure

• Tether owns the liquidity layer across exchanges and DeFi

If they deploy blockchains that make on-chain payments as simple as existing card APIs - while offering better economics and programmability - the path to adoption is frictionless. Developers won’t need to learn Solidity, manage gas tokens, or navigate MEV. They’ll just call familiar REST endpoints that happen to settle on-chain.

Decentralization without adoption is philosophy. Adoption with gradual decentralization is progress.

5. Verifiable execution creates a new trust model

Traditional corporate APIs offer zero guarantees. The operator can change pricing, shut down features, or deplatform users at will. That’s the Web2 model, and it’s genuinely problematic.

But permissioned blockchains offer something different: verifiable execution without full decentralization.

Even a corporate-run chain provides:

• Auditable state: anyone can verify that transactions happened as claimed

• Deterministic settlement: once confirmed, transactions are irreversible without extraordinary governance intervention

• Interoperable APIs: smart contracts can compose across chains and applications

This isn’t Web2’s “we might change the API tomorrow” model. It’s also not Web3’s “no one is in charge” model. It’s a middle ground: “We run the validators, but you can verify we’re executing correctly, and if you don’t like it, you can bridge elsewhere.”

That’s not perfect neutrality, but it’s a massive upgrade from today’s walled-garden APIs - and sufficient for most payment use cases.

Stripe’s Tempo could expose stablecoin programmability via audited smart contracts. Circle’s Arc could offer deterministic on-chain execution while still complying with AML and sanctions screening. Users don’t need ungoverned systems - they need governed systems with transparency.

6. Competition prevents monopoly rents

One concern is that corporate chains will simply recreate Visa and Mastercard’s oligopoly dynamics - high fees, rent extraction, and abuse of market power.

But the structure here is fundamentally different. Visa and Mastercard succeeded because they had entrenched network effects with no credible competition. Corporate blockchains face the opposite dynamic:

• Multiple chains (Tempo, Arc, Plasma) will compete on fees, features, and developer experience

• They’ll face pressure from Ethereum L2s offering even cheaper settlement

• Stablecoin issuers will compete on yield, rev-share, and distribution

• Interoperability standards will make switching costs low

The existence of multiple corporate chains - plus neutral alternatives - creates the competitive pressure that drives prices down. This isn’t monopoly infrastructure. It’s contested infrastructure with visible benchmarks and portable assets.

Anyone can issue a stablecoin. Soon, anyone will be able to launch or fork a payments-optimized chain. The barriers to entry are collapsing, which means the barriers to exploitation are rising.

7. Early token concentration is normal and fixable

Yes, some of these chains will launch with concentrated token distributions. Plasma’s token allocation favors Tether. Arc’s governance might favor Circle initially.

This is standard for new networks. Ethereum’s ether was concentrated among founders and early miners. Bitcoin’s distribution skewed heavily toward Satoshi and early adopters. Solana’s token are even now heavily insider-held. What matters isn’t initial distribution - it’s whether the trajectory points toward broader participation.

Concentration can be addressed through:

• Progressive dilution via ecosystem grants and validator rewards

• Governance minimization (reduce on-chain decisions requiring token votes)

• Exit guarantees (users can bridge assets to neutral chains if governance fails)

Tempo has stated plans to become permissionless over time. That might be a “trusted outcome” today, but trust isn’t static - it’s earned through consistent execution and transparent roadmaps. If these chains fail to decentralize as promised, users and developers will migrate to alternatives. The threat of exit is what keeps corporate behavior in check.

8. The hybrid model captures the best of both worlds

Corporate blockchains won’t replace Ethereum. They’ll extend it.

Public chains will remain the innovation sandbox - where DeFi protocols experiment, where censorship resistance matters most, where governance can be radically experimental. Corporate chains will handle enterprise-grade throughput, regulatory compliance, and mainstream payment flows. Bridges will connect them.

It’s not Ethereum vs. Arc. It’s Ethereum + Arc.

An AI agent can hold USDC on Arc, trade on an Ethereum L2 via Uniswap, settle back to Tempo for a merchant payment, and bridge to Solana for an NFT purchase - all in composable, atomic transactions. The infrastructure doesn’t need to be monolithic to be interoperable.

Just as cloud computing didn’t kill on-premises servers but abstracted them into a broader ecosystem, corporate blockchains will abstract payment rails into a multi-chain mesh. Different chains will optimize for different trust/performance tradeoffs, and users will route through whichever path best suits their needs.

9. Convenience wins - and blockchain makes it safer

History shows that users choose convenience over ideology. Apple Pay dominates despite being centralized. WhatsApp connected billions despite offering zero data portability.

But here’s the key difference with blockchain: exit costs are lower.

If WhatsApp exploits its users, their social graph is trapped. If Apple changes its terms, payment history and integrations are locked in. But if Tempo or Arc implements standard interfaces for stablecoin balances and transaction data, switching to a competitor - or bridging to Ethereum - becomes trivial.

Corporate blockchains can win on convenience without creating permanent lock-in. The underlying infrastructure is verifiable and composable, which means users maintain optionality even while choosing convenience.

Coinbase succeeded not by being the most decentralized exchange, but by being the most accessible. Corporate blockchains will follow the same playbook - but unlike Coinbase’s custodial model, they’ll provide rails that users can exit at will.

10. Corporate accountability is underrated

There’s a paradox here: being “too corporate” actually constrains bad behavior in ways that pseudonymous validator sets don’t.

If Circle arbitrarily censors transactions on Arc, it risks:

• Customer exodus to competitors

• Regulatory scrutiny for discriminatory practices

• Loss of public company valuation

• Legal liability for breach of service terms

• Permanent reputational damage

Ethereum validators can censor with relative anonymity and face minimal consequences. Circle cannot. Public companies operate under microscopes - financial disclosures, shareholder accountability, regulatory oversight, press scrutiny.

This doesn’t make corporate chains perfect. But it makes them accountable, which is a different and often undervalued form of trust. Sometimes you want neutrality. Sometimes you want someone to sue.

11. The fragmentation argument assumes zero interoperability

The concern that every company will launch its own chain, recreating SWIFT-style fragmentation, assumes these systems will be walled gardens. But the incentives point in the opposite direction.

Interoperability is now a standard concern. Cosmos IBC, Polkadot’s XCM, LayerZero, Chainlink CCIP, and other cross-chain messaging protocols already provide composable bridges between chains. Corporate chains will plug into this mesh because isolation means irrelevance.

Think TCP/IP for money: multiple networks, one protocol layer. Tempo <-> Arc <-> Plasma <-> Ethereum can coexist with shared standards for identity, compliance, and token metadata.

The internet didn’t fail because AWS, GCP, and Azure all run different infrastructure. It succeeded because they all speak HTTP, TCP/IP, and DNS. Payment chains will converge on similar standards - not out of altruism, but because their customers will demand it.

Conclusion: The future is tiered settlement, not ideological purity

The real question isn’t whether corporate blockchains are as neutral as Ethereum. It’s whether they’re useful enough to accelerate the transition to on-chain finance - and whether they preserve exit options for users who want more neutrality.

The answer to both is yes.

Ethereum will remain the settlement layer for high-value DeFi, permissionless experimentation, and censorship-critical use cases. Corporate chains will handle mainstream payments - payroll, cross-border remittances, B2B invoicing - where users need compliance, reliability, and cheap rails within existing legal systems.

The future isn’t corporate chains vs. public chains. It’s tiered settlement:

• Corporate chains for regulated, high-throughput flows

• Ethereum for neutrality-critical use cases

• Bridges and standards connecting them

• Competition preventing monopoly rents

• Users maintaining the freedom to exit

Decentralization isn’t the goal. Freedom to choose is. As long as corporate chains remain interoperable and users can move to neutral alternatives, they’ll succeed - not by replacing Ethereum, but by extending its reach into the regulated economy.

The choice isn’t between Visa and Ethereum. It’s between a future where money moves on verifiable, interoperable rails - even if imperfectly decentralized - or one where financial infrastructure remains fragmented, opaque, and extractive.

Corporate blockchains won’t rebuild Visa on-chain. They’ll dismantle it gradually - first by competing on efficiency and reach, then by converging toward shared standards and increasingly open layers.

They will succeed because they bridge compliance and composability -something public chains can’t do alone, and corporate APIs can’t do transparently. That bridge is where the future of money will be built.