Tempo Primer

Tempo is a payments-first L1 designed for stablecoin settlement. Its architecture differs from generic EVM chains in four ways Pellet cares about.

TIP-20 — Enshrined stablecoin standard

TIP-20 is Tempo's native stablecoin interface. Unlike ERC-20, it's implemented as a protocol precompile, meaning the chain itself understands supply, roles, and reward mechanics. Every stable on Tempo is TIP-20 compliant.

What Pellet reads from TIP-20:

• totalSupply() — current circulating supply
• supplyCap() — hard cap, if any
• roles() — minter, burner, admin addresses
• rewards() — if the stable accrues yield, the rate and distribution mechanism

TIP-403 — Compliance policies

TIP-403 is Tempo's enshrined compliance layer. Each stable can attach a policy — blacklist, allowlist, transfer limits, admin controls — enforced at the protocol level rather than in application logic.

Policies are queryable state. Pellet reads the registry and surfaces:

• Policy type (blacklist / allowlist / hybrid)
• Admin addresses (who can modify the policy)
• Current policy state (which addresses are blocked or approved)

This matters because an agent or app needs to know if a transfer will be rejected before broadcasting.

Enshrined DEX

Tempo ships a native DEX as a protocol precompile. It has an orderbook, liquidity pools, and — critically — a quoteSwap function that returns real-time pricing without executing a trade.

Pellet uses quoteSwap to measure peg stability. For every stable, we query the price against pathUSD (the canonical Tempo dollar) and track the spread in basis points. No oracle dependency, no off-chain aggregator — the price comes from the chain itself.

MPP — Micropayment Protocol

MPP is Tempo's HTTP-layer payment protocol. A client makes an HTTP request, receives a 402 response with payment instructions, signs a micropayment in any TIP-20 stable, and retries. The server verifies the payment and returns the response.

Pellet uses MPP for paid endpoints. Deep stablecoin analysis costs $0.05 pathUSD, settled at the protocol layer. No accounts, no API keys, no rate limits beyond what the payment graph enforces.

See Pricing for the full endpoint → price map.