# @dankrad: Ethereum researcher joins Tempo to focus on crypto payments scaling

Source: https://x.com/dankrad/status/1979133618254405775
Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/dankrad-Ethereum-researcher-joins-Tempo-to-focus-on-crypto-payments-scaling?index=0x68f2240546c337ab5ace472af64e8b2e70a3d4691da1fc0668052838a0e51f783d5c27c0
Submitted by tim on 2025-10-17 UTC, 1 upvote, 2 comments

## Summary

Dankrad Feist, an Ethereum researcher, is joining Tempo to focus on scaling crypto payments. He says he has spent several years architecting and scaling blockchains and plans to bring those learnings to Tempo's team. Feist began working with the Ethereum Foundation (EF) research team in 2018, joined full time in 2019, and says he contributed to PeerDAS, a scaling milestone due in the upcoming Fusaka upgrade. He will remain a research advisor to three EF strategic initiatives: Scale L1, Scale Blobs, and Improve UX.

## Article

I am excited to announce that I will be joining Tempo. This last year has been a turning point for crypto, where we have finally seen the outlines of our vision being materialized. While payments used to be front and center in the early days of crypto, I see a special opportunity to finally achieve this ambitious goal with relentless execution on both the technical and distribution fronts. 

I believe that the real world moment is now, and I want to make sure we do not miss this window to touch normal people’s lives everywhere in the world. I have dedicated the past several years to architecting and scaling blockchains, and I’m excited to leverage my learnings together with the very strong team being assembled at Tempo.

My journey in Ethereum first started when I began working with the EF research team in 2018, and later joining full time in 2019. The project has greatly matured since then and with the soon coming Fusaka upgrade will implement PeerDAS, a significant scaling milestone I am proud to have contributed to. I am very happy to have played a role in leading to more people being able to use Ethereum and I look forward to continuing being able to do that. Over the last year, I have been involved in advancing Ethereum Foundation’s strategy and roadmap and I will remain a research advisor to the three strategic initiatives (Scale L1, Scale Blobs, Improve UX) at the Protocol Cluster at the EF.

Ethereum has a strong set of values and technical choices that make it unique in the world. And Tempo will be a great complement, built using similar technology and values, whilst being able to push the boundaries on scale and speed. I believe that this will be of great benefit to Ethereum. Tempo’s open-source technology can easily integrate back into Ethereum, benefiting the entire ecosystem. Ethereum and Tempo are strongly aligned, as they are built with the same permissionless ideals in mind. I am looking forward to staying involved with the community and continuing to push Ethereum forward!

## Comments

**tim**: Wow this is pretty disappointing... didn't he also take the money from Eigenlayer?

**tim**: But I think he walked that back, right?